Meet the Robinsons (2007)
Directed by: Stephen J. Anderson
Premise: An animated 3-D film. A twelve-year-old orphan (voice of Jordan Fry) is taken on an adventure to the future and meets a kooky family while being pursed through time by a mysterious figure (voice of Stephen J. Anderson).
What Works: The theatrical presentation is in 3-D and features a 3-D Donald Duck cartoon that has not been shown theatrically for decades. Fans of Walt Disney animation may want to check out the film for this reason.
What Doesn’t: Despite some visual flair, Meet the Robinsons is not a very entertaining film. The gaudy backgrounds and fast paced editing get very annoying and the humor of the picture is lame. Adults will be very bored by the picture but children will probably not be that entertained by it either. There is no story to speak of and the filmmakers clearly had no intention of creating any coherent narrative, preferring instead to string together camera tricks that are disconnected from each other and do not add up to anything. Meet the Robinsons constantly cuts from one joke to the other and from one nauseating shot to the next but the cumulative effect is just numbing. The underwhelming quality of the picture is largely a result of stealing so much from other films. Meet the Robinsons takes liberally from the Star Wars prequels, The Matrix, Blade Runner, The Incredibles, Robots, Back to the Future, and Lost in Space but it does not do anything interesting with these ideas or images. The result is a film with lame jokes, obnoxious cinematography and editing, and a bunch of recycled content. On top of that, the 3-D effects are not particularly good, as the imagery largely goes into the screen rather than sticking out of it.
Bottom Line: Meet the Robinsons is a serious let down. The only reason to see it would be the 3-D effects, since this is a rare commodity outside of theme parks, but in its 2-D presentation, Meet the Robinsons is largely a waste of time.
Episode: #141 (May 20, 2007)