Robots

ROBOTS (2005) - Mar. 6, 2005
This movie started off really well, but then sort of lost its way as it went on. The beginning sequence, with Rodney Copperbottom growing up and first going to the big city, was really good. Stanley Tucci is excellent as Rodney's dad. And for a while, the film remains very entertaining, mostly because of how good it all looks. Visually, this is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Kudos to whoever designed this movie; the whole city and all the robots were almost always fascinating to look at. But the movie itself just sort of runs out of steam after a while. Robin Williams was fine, but he wasn't really playing a character -- he was just Robin Williams being wacky, which got tiresome after a while. The movie definitely can't even come close to anything Pixar has done, or even to the previous movie by these same directors, Ice Age. It doesn't help that it feels like it's going more for the kiddies than the type of universal appeal of Pixar (complete with fart and Britney Spears jokes). But the whole thing looks so good you can almost just overlook its flaws and be entertained purely on the visuals alone. ***