Meet The Robinsons 3D (U)

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Kids (2007)
101mins US

Starring: Wesley Singerman, Angela Bassett, Laurie Metcalf
Director: Stephen Anderson
Listings: London | Rest of UK and Ireland

Young orphan and aspiring inventor Lewis is too wrapped up in his ingenious devices to invest time and energy into charming adoptive parents. By chance, one of his technological creations happens to work, attracting the attention of a nefarious figure from the future. Propelled into another dimension alongside his new friend Wilbur Robinson, Lewis enjoys the wackiest day of his life, including a journey in a spacecraft, an altercation with a Tyrannosaurus Rex and musical accompaniment from a dancing frog band.

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LondonNet Film Review
Meet The Robinsons

Based on the book A Day With Wilbur Robinson by William Joyce, Disney's latest state-of-the-art, computer animated feature is a triumph of style over substance, and technical might over emotional subtlety...

To say that Stephen Anderson's film is madcap and zany would be an understatement - Meet The Robinsons heaves at the seams with more weird characters, plot twists, clever contraptions and ideas than can be comfortably contained in 101 minutes.

If the protagonists were remotely engaging, watching the film would be an exhausting experience. Thankfully then, the seven screenwriters pull the film in so many different directions, and us with it, that this fast and frenzied time-travelling yarn unfolds as a blur.

Younger viewers may find odd scraps of enjoyment from a marauding Tyrannosaurus Rex that realises it isn't physically well suited to chasing a small boy ("I have a big head... and little arms," he laments), or mad inventor Dr Krunklehorn who has an ingenious way of staying alert: multiple caffeine patches. "You can stay awake for days without side effects!" she whoops. Teenagers will have to make do with a hip soundtrack including The All-American Rejects, They Might Be Giants and Rufus Wainwright.

The diminutive hero is orphaned boy genius Lewis (voiced by Daniel Hansen and Jordan Fry), who has a passion for technology and is completely immersed in his fantasy world of ingenious devices and gizmos, to the dismay of orphanage manager Mildred (Angela Bassett).

Lewis is so wrapped up in his inventions that he has little time to charm potential adoptive parents, or to be sensitive to the needs of his permanently exhausted roommate Goob (Matthew Josten), who is kept awake at night by his tinkering.

Convinced that his future happiness depends on tracking down his biological mother, Lewis creates a Memory Scanner to extract long buried memories of the parent he has never known. "I have to find her Mildred and when I do, she'll take me back," he says.

The first demonstration of Lewis's creation goes spectacularly awry after a mysterious figure called Bowler Hat Guy (Stephen Anderson) sabotages the scanner, before appropriating it for his own nefarious purposes.

Soon after, Lewis meets 13-year-old Wilbur Robinson (Wesley Singerman), a visitor from the near future, who conveys the dumbstruck orphan on an unforgettable journey into a world of eye-popping technology and crazy characters.

And none are crazier than Wilbur's extended family, including his inventor father Cornelius (Tom Selleck), mother Franny (Nicole Sullivan) with her dancing frog band, disco-dancing Grandma Lucille (Laurie Metcalf), intergalactic pizza deliveryman Uncle Art (Adam West) or the family butler Lefty, who just happens to be a one-eyed purple octopus.

Surrounded by misfits and oddballs, Lewis suddenly realises he has found in his place in the world, only for Bowler Hat Guy to reappear and threaten everything that the boy holds dear. A 3D version of the film is currently on release at selected cinemas around the country.

- Sam Cannon

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