'ROBINSONS' A MEET-AND-GREET THAT'S A REAL TREAT.

Byline: Glenn Whipp

Film Critic

The villain looks like Snidely Whiplash, but he isn't really evil, just misguided. The dinosaur gets subtitled, the frogs (when they're not stuffing bodies in trunks of automobiles) star in production numbers, and the adults are straight out of a George S. Kaufman-Moss Hart comedy.

There are a lot of odd things about Disney's latest animated movie, "Meet the Robinsons," not the least of which being the notable absence of cute, talking critters. (The frogs don't really count.)

The G-rated "Robinsons" feels like a cross between "Back to the Future" and "You Can't Take It With You" with a dash of "Jimmy Neutron" thrown in.

For the most part, it's weird enough to work. And with its beautifully realized, digital 3-D presentation, "Robinsons" is a movie that ought to be seen in theaters. That you get to keep the glasses is an added enticement.

The premise is a standard-

issue misfit story about a 12-year-old orphan boy named Lewis (voiced by Daniel Hansen), a kid who has been through 124 meet-and-greets with potential parents without ever being adopted. Lewis is something of a mad scientist, and at a school fair, he meets another boy, Wilbur (Wesley Singerman), who urgently whisks Lewis 50 years into a poppy, streamlined future straight out of a William Joyce book.

Of course, you might know that "Robinsons" is straight out of a Joyce book, "A Day With Wilbur Robinson," to be precise, which seven credited screenwriters beefed up for the movie's breezy 101-minute running time. Readers will recognize the nutty Robinson family, who have been brought to the screen without dulling their wonderful eccentricities. It's a clan that Lewis always imagined he'd belong to -- and, as we learn later, for good reason.

Director Stephen Anderson does double duty, voicing the movie's villain, the Bowler Hat Guy. This mustachioed man might be the movie's greatest asset (outside of the T-Rex lamenting his "big head and little arms"), a doofus who keeps his evil to-do list inside a unicorn notebook and seems more in need of a pat on the head than a throne to rule the world.

"Robinsons" wants its hero and villain to both learn lessons -- the same one, it turns out. The movie ends with a quote from Walt Disney, in which the words "keep moving forward" are highlighted. For the beleaguered Disney Animation unit, "Meet the Robinsons" is indeed a step forward, a step in the right direction.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

[e-mail]

MEET THE ROBINSONS - Three stars

(G)

Starring: Voices of Daniel Hansen, Wesley Singerman, Angela Bassett, Tom Selleck, Adam West.

Director: Stephen Anderson.

Running time: 1 hr. 41 min.

Playing: In wide release.

In a nutshell: Disney Animation's latest mixes "Back to the Future" with "You Can't Take It With You." It's weird, but it works.

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Lewis, left, an orphaned genius, is taken by Wilbur to a future complete with villains, frogs and a T-Rex in "Meet the Robinsons."