Worth: $19.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Dog, Robot, Duck
Intro:
...a film to embrace and cherish...
In the world of animation, Pixar and Disney rule supreme. They lord it over everyone else, taking out umpteen Oscars and crushing the box office just about every time. They have the big budgets and marketing dollars, sure, but they also have quality…bucketloads of it. That said, it is nice to see Pixar and Disney beaten at their own game occasionally, and their latest challenger comes in the unlikely form of Robot Dreams, a beautifully retro-animated Spanish wonder that may very well rate as the most deeply human film ever made to feature no actual humans. A truly rare emotional experience, Robot Dreams is deliriously, almost uncannily simple, but also rich and oh-so-deep at the same time. It’s an animated film so good, you’ll literally consider yourself lucky to have kids to take it to.
Though populated by anthropomorphic animals, Robot Dreams is set very much in the New York of the early 1980s, complete with hard-barrelling subway trains, graffiti on every surface, and surly denizens all too ready to flip anyone off who looks at them sideways. It’s a vibe more redolent of Walter Hill’s The Warriors than the wild urban jungle of Zootopia. In this gritty animated version of The Big Apple lives Dog (voiced by, well, nobody really, as Robot Dreams has no dialogue…that’s right, no dialogue), a lonely nice guy who finds solace and friendship in the surprising form of a robot he purchases through a TV advertorial. But after a day at the beach, Robot’s mechanics seize with the salt water, and Dog has to leave him on the sand. Tragically, it’s also the last day of the season, which means the gate to the beach is locked, and Robot lies stranded on the sand while Dog tries to figure out how to rescue him.
Just from the synopsis, you can likely guess that Robot Dreams is more in the league of the tear-inducing Bambi than it is the goofy frolic of Shrek or Minions. As the seasons pass and Robot remains on the sand, both he and Dog dream of reuniting and of different realities, which sees director Pablo Berger dip into some bizarre (but still chaste) imagery and ideas that may very well appeal to baked audiences in the way that Disney’s Fantasia long has. Though occasionally trippy (the film hauntingly boasts a Snowman very far from Frosty), Robot Dreams is mostly sweetly funny and quietly heartbreaking, stoking up the kind of emotional response that most live action films could only dream about…and all with no dialogue. In place of words, the film makes incredibly astute use of music (Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” has never been better employed, while it’s always a joy to hear Buck Owens’ “It’s A Monster’s Holiday”) to drive home its story beats.
Rolling toward a finale that is the very definition of bittersweet beauty, Robot Dreams is almost staggering in its power to make you feel for its characters, all while gazing in wonder at its gorgeously inventive imagery. Admirable in its unassuming brilliance, Robot Dreams truly is a film to embrace and cherish…films like this don’t come along all that often, and when they do, they need to be loudly and relentlessly celebrated. Robot Dreams is a dream come true.