ROBOTS

again I have purchased this for my son who suffered a stroke.. he did not know something like exist it cheered him up...thank you.

While not as funny as other animated movies such as Shrek, Robots has some truly funny moments to lighten what might otherwise be a rather dark film.

There is plenty here for kids to enjoy, and the animation is superb, but any parent or adult animated-film-appreciator can get a lot out of it too.

(See the review below for a great synopsis of the story.)

Few animated movies have this many parallels to current issues and events. In Robots, the citizens of Robot City are facing pressure to upgrade or be outmoded scrap metal. Since this is how car companies, for example, work, I certainly hope the positive message here will resurface when kids grow up and bear the full brunt of marketing and advertising. That the Robots resist, becoming adept at fixing their own problems and not rely on others in positions of power, is also a much-needed message.

Like Disney movies and other Hollywood animated feature films, Robots suffers from being too obvious, from forcing its messages down people's throats for fear that anything less will be overlooked or misunderstood. Being heavy-handed with morals tends to drag these movies down for an adult audience, but I still got some laughs out of it (I loved the farting scene: the street lamp outside collapses and in the morning its gone, just a chalk outline showing where it died) and the ballet-fight scene between Rodney and Fender was quite beautiful, and amusing.

If anything should be taken away from this movie, it's People Power. It's the ability of people, when pushed to the limits of their endurance, to rally together and fight back for what they believe in: justice, a safe and peaceful future (think: Viet Nam).

Leaders of the world beware.

I would have given this movie 3-1/2 stars, but you can't do halfs, so I'll give it a four.

For kids, this is an absolutely great movie. Visually, it's among the best CG animated movies out there. Everything on the screen moves, bounces and is poster bright. They've created an entire world here full of springs, hoops, wheels and just about everything else. There's always something to see.

For adults, it starts out a bit on the slow side, but is made up for by snappy dialogue (especially Robin Williams) and lots of references to other movies that the kids won't even notice, but you will. For the first half of the movie, I'd have rated it about 2-1/2, but it redeems itself in the last half when it really picks up the pace and just zips along to a very, very satisfying conclusion. It also has the best song and dance finale since Shrek. So I recommend it.

One final note - The BD case is marked as English DTS-HD Master audio. This is incorrect. This version which we get here in Canada is actually an international version which I presume was necessary in order to give us the french Cdn language track. Only the american BD has DTS-HD Master Audio.

However, as compensation, this version not only has the standard American English DTS 5.1 track, but also a total of 20 other audio tracks! And at least half are in a full 5.1, a mix of DTS and Dolby Digital depending on the language chosen. Not only is there everything from French to German to Spanish but also Danish, Swedish and a least a couple of languages that I couldn't figure out. They even throw in full DTS 5.1 tracks of Australian English and U.K. English for good measure. No wonder they had no room for the DTS-HD Master English track! And yes, they have an equal number of subtitle tracks as well.

J. A.