Review of Meet the Robinsons (2007) by Tiffany B — 20 Dec 2009

A strange and refreshingly odd little animation that went a little bit under the radar on original release by many who aren't dogged by little children demanding regular cinema trips. It is easy to see why children would like it, but beneath the easy laughs required to placate the kiddies is there anything here that makes it even slightly different from the rest? In truth, not really.

It does have a quite nice plot, with a bit more sci-fi than this genre is traditionally used to, and the story has it's twists and turns to keep you amused (although if you haven't worked out the major twists well in advance of them happening maybe you need to have a serious talk with yourself), but on the whole it's very lightweight and breezy and it does seem to have taken quite a lot of it's ideas from other peoples work, which I found a bit like cheating.

It borrows heavily from Aladdin, Robots, Flushed Away, Emperor's New Groove to name but a few, and it does feel a bit like a greatest hits package of the last 10 years in animation, albeit with slightly odder animation that I couldn't really tell if I liked or not.

It does have some funny moments though, even if it does tend to over-do them, and it has the happy ending that you require, but aside from that there is little here to put it amongst anything other than just another Disney animation since the days of the second golden era came to an end.

Style, no substance, and very easy to forget. If you like a decent film to go watch with little children, this is a great shout, but if you want something more, something that you can really get into and fall in love with, forget all of this nonsense and buy the Pixar box set.