VISUALS SAVE A CREAKY PLOT.Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic THE USER-FRIENDLY ``Robots'' is the new CG animated feature from ``Ice Age'' makers Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha Carlos Saldanha (born January 24, 1965 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is the director of Ice Age 2 (2006), and the co-director of Ice Age (2002) and Robots (2005). He received an MFA in computer art from the School of Visual Arts in 1993. . Like their previous film, this one's main strength is its Looney Tunes chases and extended visual gags. Its all-mech, multi-tech world is more intricately designed. And for a big-budget corporate product, ``Robots'' takes some serious jabs at a commercial culture that keeps trying to sell consumers on newer, sleeker (and, coyly, often electronic) products we don't need. But one thing ``Robots'' - whose script is credited to playwright David Lindsay-Abaire David Lindsay-Abaire is a Pulitzer Prize winning American playwright, best known for Fuddy Meers and for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Drama Rabbit Hole. He grew up in Boston, Massachusetts in a family of five he describes as "very blue collar. and the veteran Hollywood comedy writing team of Lowell Ganz Lowell Ganz (born August 31, 1948 in New York, New York) is an American screenwriter, television writer, and television producer. He is the long-time writing partner of Babaloo Mandel. Ganz grew up in Queens, New York. and Babaloo Mandel - doesn't have is ``Ice Age's'' primal emotional impact. That may be unavoidable when all of your characters are metal machines rather than extinct animals It may never be fully completed or, depending on its its nature, it may be that it can never be completed. However, new and revised entries in the list are always welcome. Pre-modern extinctions
Ewan McGregor provides the voice for Rodney Copperbottom, an inventive young 'bot from hicksville Rivettown. Everything here is secondhand, oxidized oxidized having been modified by the process of oxidation. oxidized cellulose see absorbable cellulose. and looks like a mid-20th-century appliance. So he takes off for Robot City, the gleaming metropolis (which owes more than a few conceptual nods to Fritz Lang's ``Metropolis'') where kindly old industrialist Mr. Bigweld's (Mel Brooks) corporate doors are open to anyone with a good idea. Except Bigweld has been squeezed out of the picture. His enterprise has been taken over by oily slickster Ratchet ratchet Mechanical device that transmits intermittent motion or permits a shaft to rotate in one direction but not in the opposite one. Reversible ratchets are used on socket wrench handles and are convenient for tightening or loosening bolts in positions where a complete (Greg Kinnear Gregory Kinnear (born June 17, 1963) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor and television personality, who rose to stardom as the first host of E!'s Talk Soup. ). He only wants to sell cosmetic ``upgrades'' to the robomasses and starve the poorer, outmoded models who dwell in the city's lower depths of vital spare parts Spare parts, also referred to as Service Parts is a term used to indicate extra parts available and in proximity to the mechanical item, such as a automobile, boat, engine, for which they might be used. Spare parts are also called “spares. . Or worse. Rodney ends up in league with a group of these street-level hustlers. They're led by the untrustworthy but good-hearted Fender, manically voiced (does he know any other way?) by Robin Williams. He's constantly falling apart; one of Fender's buddies, Aunt Fanny (Jennifer Coolidge), has a big metal backside. Jokes inevitably ensue, as does a kind of bottom-up revolution. Children's book writer and illustrator William Joyce's production designs are a major asset here. From retro-futurist to rustbucket Rockwell, they integrate a variety of influences into a convincing, finely detailed, all-metal world. Robot City's Erector erector /erec·tor/ (e-rek´ter) [L.] a structure that erects, as a muscle which raises or holds up a part. e·rec·tor n. A muscle that makes a body part erect. Also called arrector. Set/acid trip transportation system alone packs more visual imagination than is found in many features, live action or animated. It makes ``Robots'' a trip worth taking, even if it doesn't go anywhere particularly, gleamingly new. Bob Strauss, (818) 713-3670 bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com ROBOTS - Three stars (PG: violence, bathroom humor) Starring: Voices of Ewan McGregor, Robin Williams, Halle Berry, Greg Kinnear, Mel Brooks, Jim Broadbent, Amanda Bynes, Drew Carey, Jennifer Coolidge. Directors: Chris Wedge, Carlos Saldanha. Running time: 1 hr. 30 min. Playing: Wide release. In a nutshell: Crazy, kinetic action scenes make this CG cartoon about an all-mechanical world worth the ride. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Rodney, left, and Fender (voices of Ewan McGregor and Robin Williams, respectively) find adventure as they try to foil an evil industrialist in ``Robots.'' |
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