Movie Review: Meet the Robinsons

I will never be able to escape from the fact that I grew up a Disney kid. No I didn’t watch The Mickey Mouse Club (and it’s a good thing too, otherwise that Britney Spears affair I had would have started at an inappropriate age), but my grandmother did have a collection of hundreds of Disney animated movies on VHS. Remember VHS? It was so cool in it’s heyday.

But the world of Disney animation has come a long way since the days of watching VHS at Grandma’s house. They have gone from killing off Bambi’s mom and making me cry to being forced (for some Godawful reason) to make The Jungle Book 2. But despite the recent shortcomings of Disney’s own animation studios they can lay claim to owning Pixar, the company responsible for such animated powerhouses as The Incredibles and Finding Nemo. The man behind Pixar’s success, animation genius John Lasseter, is now the Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Animation, the company that is the remnant of what was once the greatest empire of imagination in the history of film, and he is looking to get Disney’s animation department back on track, Pixar style – and with Meet the Robinsons, they seem to have a great start.

Meet the Robinsons is the story of Lewis, a young brainiac who was left on the doorstep of an orphanage as a baby by his mother. After struggling to find a family to adopt him, Lewis decides to invent a machine that will allow him to draw memories of his mother out of his brain so that he can go and find her.

While his machine seems to be the answer to all of his problems, his plans are thwarted by a mysterious Bowler Hat-wearing guy from the future who travels back in time to steal Lewis’ machine to try and pawn it off as his own idea. Hot on the trail of the Bowler Hat Guy is Wilbur Robinson, a wannabe detective who also happens to have a time machine. In pursuit of the Bowler Hat Guy, Lewis and Wilbur return to the future where Lewis meets the Robinsons, learns a bit about family, and ultimately discovers a lot about himself.

Article Author: Neil Miller

Neil Miller is a 23-year-old film critic who lives and works in Columbus, Ohio. He is a member of the Central Ohio Film Critics Association. His musings about the world of film (and other various topics) are on display at his blog, The Columbus Movie Guy. …

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