While browsing through Blockbuster for something fun to watch last night, we came across Robots. You know, one of those computer animated movies from 20th Century Fox's animation studio (respsponsible for Ice Age... shudder). The first thing I thought when I saw it was that it seemed to have arrived on DVD awfully soon. Wasn't it in the theaters just a few months ago? Or maybe it didn't make it to the theaters? I wouldn't know, as I don't go to the theaters anymore. Another blog on that another day.
We decided to rent it anyway since we wanted something lighthearted and potentially funny. We weren't expecting great things as we hadn't heard great things about it. Actually, I can't remember hearing anything about it. However, the audio options did include DTS, so that right there is a good enough reason to rent it. I'll blog about DTS later (is someone keeping track of all these other blogs to which I've commited myself?).
Robots is about, er, robots. Voiced by numerous celebrities (Ewan MacGregor, Drew Carey, Robin Williams, Halle Berry and Mel Brooks to name only a few), Robots tells the story of young Rodney Copperbottom (MacGregor), an energetic inventor who heads to Robot City in the hopes of pitching his new invention idea to the greatest inventor of them all, Bigweld (Brooks). During his journey he meets numerous other robots and discovers a plot to replace all spare-parts with upgrades, reducing Rodney and his 'out-moded' friends to scrap metal.
Despite having a fairly simple and predictable plot, I found this movie very entertaining. It was just a lot of fun. I laughed a lot more than I expected I would. The jokes aren't all that clever or inventive but for some reason they work. The music, the slapstick humor, the fantastic computer animated effects and of course, Robin William's unique comedy-style combine to provide good times.
It's also a very short film, weighing in at only 1 hour and 22 minutes. Normally I prefer long movies (three cheers for Peter Jackson and his extended-edtion Lord of the Rings!), but in this case it was nice to have a short flick to watch and enjoy. Plus, it was really late and I was feeling a little queasy from some questionable seafood I had just eaten, so the short time frame allowed me to get to bed earlier. This movie certainly benefits from a shorter run time. I think the jokes and story would start to wear pretty thin after a while but 82 minutes is a perfect length.
Robots was transferred to DVD in beautiful 1.85:1 Anamorphic video. Being a computer generated feature, it looks about as good as animated shows can look. Did I mention there was a DTS (Digital Theater Sound) option? There are many musical moments and active scenes that really benefit from the 5.1 digital sound. Both the audio and the video helped in making this film put a smile on my face.
If you're looking for something light and fun you can't go wrong with Robots. I'm still trying to decide if this is one I want to own or not. I haven't watched any of the special features yet so I can't comment on them. There is also a commentary available which I haven't watched either. Hmmm, yeah, I'll probably end up getting it eventually. The whole addiction thing you know.
It was just fun. And sometimes you need something that's just fun.
Whee!
Robots gets 7 bolts (out of 10).
Fun trivia for 'Robots'
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