Meet the Robinsons - Keep Moving Forward

When I first saw trailers for Meet the Robinsons, I wasn’t really sure what to make of it. I was aware it had been based on a William Joyce book I vaguely recalled reading, A Day with Wilbur Robinson, though I didn’t know how well the book could be translated to feature length. I didn’t end up seeing the movie in a theater when it first came out in 2007, though I had been reminded of its existence when taking a handful of college animation courses. I had recently taken a Disney XD airing as a chance to finally watch the movie, to which I found it to be a bit better than I initially expected.

After being abandoned at an orphanage as a baby, Lewis (Jordan Fry) spends his time there building inventions, which usually leads to potential foster parents not wanting to adopt him. This leads Lewis to conclude that he needs to find his biological mother, so he pulls all-nighters building a device that can access memories, to the detriment of his roommate “Goob” (Matthew Josten) getting any sleep, just in time for a science fair. At the science fair, Lewis meets a teenager named Wilbur Robinson (Wesley Singerman), who claims to be a time cop from the future trying to stop a mysterious Bowler Hat Guy (Steve Anderson) from ruining Lewis’ invention. When things go wrong, Wilbur takes Lewis to the future to prove he's telling the truth, only for the time machine to crash in the future, and so Lewis must stay to help repair it while keeping a low profile.

The core of the story is pretty easy to follow and has a good message about family and that one should “keep moving forward” in the face of failure. That said, the logic of time travel, the crux of the movie, has some issues. It’s clear the movie runs on the logic presented in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (“The clock is always running in San Dimas”), which, on its own, could work just fine. However, similarly to Bill & Ted, it eventually falls into a crutch towards the end where, if a character says something will happen in the future, it happens. Another thing of note is that there don’t seem to be any consequences for a character meeting another version of themselves or even learning about their future, plus there’s a scene in the movie where Bowler Hat Guy summons a T. Rex (Joe Mateo) from the past in a poorly-thought-out plan to get at Lewis, only for the T. Rex to remain in the future without consequence. I was also able to guess a couple of the movie’s biggest twists before they were revealed, one of which I was able to guess immediately after a single exchange earlier in the movie.

For an animated movie from 2007, the animation quality actually holds up pretty well, though it appears a little unpolished. Comparing it with other animated films that year, it looks less polished than Pixar’s Ratatouille, which came out three months later, however it still manages to look more visually appealing (to me) than Dreamworks' Bee Movie, which came out that November. Another point on the lack of polish is the liquid effects, especially in comparison to the aforementioned Ratatouille; the effects used on peanut butter and jelly splatters in one scene of this movie look rather cheap and a little rushed, whereas Ratatouille would feature more realistic liquid effects (granted, the latter film was entirely about making food look delicious, but still). That said, the movie perfectly captures William Joyce’s art style and the new characters introduced to the movie are designed such that they seem to fit right in. Between the present and future timelines, the architecture of the future is especially reminiscent of Joyce’s style, as the use of simple geometries is present in many of his works.

Wilbur (Wesley Singerman, right) brings Lewis (Jordan Fry, left) to the future.

The voice acting is well-casted, with Jordan Fry managing to portray Lewis with some great character in his performance. Another standout is Steve Anderson’s humorous portrayal as Bowler Hat Guy, though he does manage to make the character seem more menacing when needed. I will say though that I was surprised by Adam West as Uncle Art (of the Robinson family), though considering the character’s costume and Adam West’s famous portrayal as Batman, this bit of casting somewhat makes sense.

As for the music, I didn’t find much of it to be that memorable, even though it was composed by Danny Elfman. That said, I actually found some enjoyment with the end credits song “The Future Has Arrived” by The All-American Rejects. The broadcast in which I watched this movie was one that not only sped up the credits after the primary credits, it also cut off this song for time, which necessitated listening to it in full through an official YouTube upload, and so I have no idea if there are any other songs during the credits beyond this one.

Meet the Robinsons is not one of the best Disney animated movies out there, though it’s certainly not one of the worst. Computer animation has definitely improved since this film’s release, especially when comparing this movie to Disney’s own Tangled three years later, though today it’s still passable and a great translation of William Joyce’s art style. Despite some issues with the movie’s time travel logic, Meet the Robinsons is still an overall enjoyable movie with some good messages and is something I’d recommend to William Joyce fans.