Rusted Robot
Somewhere around half a bucket of popcorn into Robots, the boredom began to kick in. My mind wandered dangerously toward insanity while I watched, or rather was subjected to, Robots, the newest form of Chinese water torture brought to you by the good folks at Fox Animation Studio.
Hypothetically speaking, let’s say a certain film critic begins to wonder why the Halle Berry-voiced bot is dull gray without any sexy features to speak of. Is he automatically a pervert, a degenerate who gets kicks out of animated babes like Pocahontas, Ariel from The Little Mermaid or that hot Angelina Jolie fish from Shark Tale?
Let me tell you firsthand boredom can drive a man to crave metallic breasts, not out of wanton savagery, but out of desire for fairness to Ms. Berry. Sculpting a Halle Berry robot like a 12-year-old boy is the misleading cinematic equivalent of casting Verne Troyer to play Ron Jeremy.
Robots has that rare ability to silence an entire room of Pixie Stix-devouring kids. The punch lines are stale and ill-timed, the animation is amateur and the obligatory life lesson is obvious and sappy.
A lifeless Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting) lends his voice to the film’s irrepressible, blue-collar hero, Rodney Copperbottom, who journeys to the metropolis of Robot City (spend all day thinking of that name, fellas?) in hopes of one day working as an inventor under folk hero and robot tycoon Big Weld (Mel Brooks).
But as Rodney soon learns, Big Weld has been mysteriously replaced by the foul Ratchet (Greg Kinnear, As Good as It Gets), who seeks to maximize profits by phasing out obsolete, poor robots by producing only pricey upgrades rather than spare parts. Those who fall into disrepair and cannot afford the upgrades will be taken to the dreaded chop shop, where they will be melted down.
Rodney, along with his rusty buddies Crank Casey (Drew Carey), Piper Pinwheeler (Amanda Bynes, What a Girl Wants), Cappy (Berry) and the manic Fender (Robin Williams), leads a communist-style revolt against Ratchet and the powers of industry who are attempting to snuff weaker robots out of existence.
The filmmakers seem to believe making all the characters robots is such an ingenious idea that they can get away with an inferior plot — an irresponsible and lazy assumption on their part. In The Incredibles, Disney and Pixar’s latest Oscar-winning effort, the idea of a family of superheroes was a novel concept, but writers still crafted a finely woven story to keep audiences engaged.
And what, may I ask, is the point of enlisting British actors McGregor and Jim Broadbent (voice of the villainous Madame Gasket) if they are just going to give their characters American accents? Why not just cast two Yanks instead? To answer my own question, idiotic studio execs simply want as many big names as possible to fill movie posters at the expense of real voice talent, which is becoming a lost art.
In addition to those already listed, Paul Giamatti, James Earl Jones, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, Al Roker, Jamie Kennedy, Terry Bradshaw, Carson Daly and D.L. Hughley lend their voices to robots in the film. But be warned, if you see the film, good luck trying to pick out your favorite actor’s character; most use indistinguishable variations of their voices, rendering the whole cameo nonsense pointless anyway. Roker, for example, plays a robot mailbox with maybe two spoken words, but his name makes it into the credits.
Even Williams, the most welcome celebrity voice in the flick, is only sporadically funny. Though the dialogue Williams is forced to recite often fails him, his hyper approach to Fender is a welcome addition to the film, one of its lone bright spots.
Director Chris Wedge’s last effort, Ice Age, though by no means perfect, is far superior to this bucket of bolts. If you buy a ticket to the oft-rusty and rarely riveting Robots looking for a few laughs and a good time, you’re screwed. And unless you’re a robot yourself, that’s not a good thing.
