Robots is a pretty good film that will probably keep your kids occupied and entertained, at least the first time they watch it. It's a fairly entertaining light family film with some good moments and just enough comedy to hold your attention, even if much of that comedy involves Robin Williams doing jokes that seem like hold-over material from the TV show "Mork & Mindy". But then your kids aren't old enough to know what that show is, so they won't be aware of the recycling.

What this film really did for me was make me appreciate Pixar more. Unlike the maker of Robots and other high-tech CGI films, Pixar starts out with a solid story idea and then develops the CGI and the gags to support that idea. Technology has gotten to the point where dazzling effects are easier to do and cheaper than ever and filmmakers are forgetting that audiences ultimately want to see an interesting story, not a dog-and-pony show of the latest in graphics effects with a storyline that has the complexity of a 1930's serial thrown in to hold it all together. So, if you have small children, it might be worthwhile. If you are an adult, however, I think you'll be somewhat bored.

Yesterday I was shopping at Target and they had a bunch of movies for seven fifty, Robots was one of them. I never saw the movie before, but I figured it's just a couple more bucks then if I rented it, so I bought it and watched it last night. I have to say that I'm glad I bought it because I really enjoyed it, this was a fun animated movie that got over looked in 2005. It had great actors for the voices, Mel Brooks couldn't have been a more perfect choice, the whole look of the movie is absolutely cool to look at, and the story was extremely original. This is a great film to watch for yourself or with the family.

Rodney is a common robot with his poor parents, but he has big city dreams to meet Bigweld, the biggest robot of all time, he is the inventor who makes sure that every robot is taken care of. Rodney goes to the big city to meet Bigweld and become an inventor himself, but ends up meeting several robots who are nobody's including Fender, his new best friend. They discover that an evil robot who has taken over Bigweld's factory is planning on destroying all the old bots who can't afford to upgrade, so pretty much that's the whole town. But Rodney and his friends are dedicated to making sure that everyone can be safe as an old bot.

Robots is a very imaginative movie with a very creative story and look. I was really impressed with this movie and would highly recommend it. It has very funny moments for both the kids and the adults, so it works for a family movie very well. Robin Williams did a terrific job as Vender, he was just a great addition and brought fun comedic relief. But the whole cast sounded like they had a lot of fun with this movie. This is a fun film to watch and I think anyone could enjoy it, so grab the popcorn, because you're gonna have fun.

7/10

When the film first began, I was bowled over by how visually stunning this film was. Considering it was made by the same studio (Fox) that had recently made the ICE AGE films, I was not expecting such exquisite graphics. Now I am not putting down ICE AGE or its sequel, but they just didn't look as beautifully rendered as the Dreamworks and Pixar computer generated films. Considering that Fox came into the full-length C.G. game later, I can understand this but in ROBOTS they have shown that at least visually they are on par or perhaps even better than rival studios--it was THAT nice.

Unfortunately, while Fox spared no expense on graphics, when it comes to the story, the film came up very short. Most of this is because the story itself seemed so ordinary and filled with clichés--making it a very formulaic film. Plus, unfortunately, none of the characters are especially compelling or interesting--including the plucky lead. They all seemed like characters recycled from many other recent kids movies (such as the plucky and under-appreciated girl). Plus, while many out there no doubt would disagree with me, I DON'T particularly love Robin Williams--his character comes on very strong and takes away from the charm of the story. In many ways, he was so loud and so "in your face" in many scenes that other characters seemed to get lost. To me, the performance was a lot like a very precious 6 year-old who is encouraged to perform for company--enough already!

So overall, the film is gorgeous to look at but very empty and forgettable otherwise. Despite its amazing look, it turns out to be just another kids movie and nothing more. With so many C.G. movies in recent years, this one gets lost in the crowd and doesn't rank among the better films of this type.

PS--While many out there have never played any of the Ratchet and Clank games for the Playstation systems, this movie looked almost exactly like many of the robot worlds from this game. To people like me who have played and loved the games, you will no doubt be excited by the look of Robot City.