Movie: Meet the Robinsons
Mar. 30th, 2009 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thesilversirenIt's rare that I do a movie review for something that's been out on DVD for a few years. But Meet the Robinsons is one of those rare movies that was so poorly advertised that it was in theaters very briefly, and came out on DVD with little more than a blip in advertising.
The movie itself is based on William Joyce's "A Day with Wilbur Robinson," a children's book about a boy who spends a day with Wilbur Robinson and his crazy family. The movie itself has a much more involved plot about Lewis (an orphaned inventor who wants nothing more than to be wanted)and his run in with Wilbur Robinson (a strange boy from the future), who claims to be protecting him from the evil Bowler Hat Guy.
The movie was advertised as a time travel movie (it is) with a dinosaur (in one scene, basically) and talking frogs (in a couple scenes). It's a surprisingly heartfelt movie about love, acceptance, and not dwelling in the past.
It's very cleverly written, and makes the time travel genre understandable for children. Because of this, hardcore fans of time travel movies (like Back to the Future) might have to put their thinking caps aside.
My only quibble- I hope they fired the agency that convinced Disney that following the box office failure of Chicken Little, that they needed to play up a dinosaur who talked and talking frogs. As great as those were, they completely failed to advertise what was really interesting- a boy looking for who he is.
The movie itself is based on William Joyce's "A Day with Wilbur Robinson," a children's book about a boy who spends a day with Wilbur Robinson and his crazy family. The movie itself has a much more involved plot about Lewis (an orphaned inventor who wants nothing more than to be wanted)and his run in with Wilbur Robinson (a strange boy from the future), who claims to be protecting him from the evil Bowler Hat Guy.
The movie was advertised as a time travel movie (it is) with a dinosaur (in one scene, basically) and talking frogs (in a couple scenes). It's a surprisingly heartfelt movie about love, acceptance, and not dwelling in the past.
It's very cleverly written, and makes the time travel genre understandable for children. Because of this, hardcore fans of time travel movies (like Back to the Future) might have to put their thinking caps aside.
My only quibble- I hope they fired the agency that convinced Disney that following the box office failure of Chicken Little, that they needed to play up a dinosaur who talked and talking frogs. As great as those were, they completely failed to advertise what was really interesting- a boy looking for who he is.
