Meet the Robinsons 720p - (2007 Lang: English)

"Back to the Future" meets "The Incredibles"!

Somewhere Walt Disney must be smiling. "Meet the Robinsons" is the perfect, unlikely marriage of manic, absurd humor, eye-popping visuals and honest-to-goodness emotional depth. It is a close cousin to the first "Back to the Future," yet it feels completely original at the same time. The 3-D animation works seamlessly within the story. It is not played for a cheesy gimmick (like, for example, "Spy Kids 3-D"...groan). In fact, it is so well integrated into the narrative that you could almost take it for granted, so it's a good thing that at the heart of "Meet the Robinsons" there is a wonderfully entertaining story. In typical Disney fashion the central character is a motherless (and in this case, fatherless) youth -- however this time it is not merely a device whose sole purpose is to leave him unencumbered to embark on his own adventure. In fact, his orphaned status and quest to find the mother that left him at the orphanage as a baby IS the point of his journey. But there's no room for sugary sap here, thanks to an almost unending stream of quirky characters and plot twists. Of course stories like this can't succeed without a great villain. In this case the filmmakers have managed to craft a bumbling villain who is simultaneously hilarious, sympathetic and just menacing enough to keep the tension going. He reminded me of Snidely Whiplash, Mack the Knife, and the magician from Rankin-Bass' "Frosty the Snowman," all rolled into one.

This movie has all the seat-of-your-pants fun of a great amusement park ride and still manages to make you (well...me) cry at the end. The deft combination of love and laughs results in a movie that stays with you well after the lights have come up, leaving you wanting more. It is rare nowadays for and entire audience of moviegoers to spontaneously burst into applause at the end, but that's what occurred when the credits began to roll for this film. "Meet the Robinsons" is loaded with enough heart, rapid fire jokes and blink-and-you'll-miss-them sight gags to make it worth repeated viewings. We can't wait for the eventual DVD release -- hopefully in 3-D. Come to think of it, we REALLY can't wait, so we're going to see it again on the big screen.

Meet the Robinsons is a 2007 American computer-animated science fiction comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures on March 30, 2007. The 47th Disney animated feature film, it was released in standard and Disney Digital 3-D versions. The film is loosely based on characters from the children's book A Day with Wilbur Robinson, by William Joyce. The voice cast includes Jordan Fry, Wesley Singerman, Harland Williams, Tom Kenny, Steve Anderson, Laurie Metcalf, Adam West, Tom Selleck, and Angela Bassett. It was the first film released after John Lasseter became chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Lewis is an aspiring 12-year-old inventor at an orphanage whose inventions have been scaring off potential parents. He decides that his mother, who abandoned him at the orphanage as an infant, is the only one who ever truly loved him and works on a machine to scan his memory to locate her. Taking his memory scanner to his school's science fair, Lewis meets 13-year-old Wilbur Robinson, a mysterious boy claiming to be a time cop from the future. Wilbur needs to recover a time machine that a man wearing a bowler hat has stolen. Lewis tries to demonstrate the scanner, but it falls apart, throwing the science fair into chaos. Upset, Lewis leaves while the Bowler Hat Guy, with the help of a robotic bowler hat named Doris, repairs and steals the scanner.

Wilbur meets Lewis at the orphanage and asks him to repair the scanner. Lewis agrees to do so only if Wilbur can prove he is telling the truth, which Wilbur does by taking them to the year 2037 in a second time machine. When they arrive, however, Lewis says he can use the time machine instead of the scanner, and he and Wilbur get into an argument and crash. Wilbur then asks Lewis to fix the time machine, but Lewis has another condition: Wilbur has to take him to visit his mother afterwards. Reluctantly, Wilbur agrees and hides Lewis in the garage. Lewis doesn't stay there for long, however, and ends up meeting the rest of the Robinsons except for Cornelius, Wilbur's father, who is away on a business trip. Following Lewis, the Bowler Hat Guy and Doris unsuccessfully try to kidnap him. Meanwhile, the Robinsons offer to adopt Lewis, but change their mind when they learn that he's from the past. Wilbur admits to lying to Lewis about taking him back to see his mom, causing Lewis to run off in disgust.

Lewis then discovers that Cornelius Robinson is, in fact, a future version of himself, and Wilbur is his future son. Lewis also finds out that the Bowler Hat Guy is a grown-up version of Lewis' roommate, Michael "Goob" Yagoobian. Because he was always kept awake by Lewis doing his projects, Goob fell asleep during an important Little League game. After failing to make an important catch that cost their game, the teammates had beaten him up. Goob became so bitter as a result, that he was never adopted and remained in the orphanage long after it closed. Doris was "DOR-15", one of Lewis' failed and abandoned inventions. They both blamed Lewis for their misfortunes and decided to ruin his career by stealing the memory scanner and claiming credit for it. Leaving Lewis behind, they take off with the scanner, drastically altering the future to a world minus Wilbur and dominated by Doris' clones who mind controlled the human population into slavery. In a video camera, it is shown that Goob is betrayed and shocked by Doris' takeover of everyone and is presumably killed by Doris' clones. Lewis repairs the second time machine, goes to confront Doris and destroys her by promising to never invent her, restoring the future to its Utopian self. After persuasion from Lewis, Wilbur tries to ask the adult Goob to join the family, but he has disappeared, apparently ashamed at what he has done.

Back in Wilbur's time, Lewis finally meets Cornelius face to face. Cornelius explains how the memory scanner had started their successful career, which persuades Lewis to return to the science fair. Wilbur takes Lewis back, but makes one stop first: as he promised, he takes Lewis back to the moment when his mother abandoned him. Lewis nearly stops her from leaving his infant self at the orphanage, but decides not to, explaining to Wilbur that he already has a family.

Wilbur drops Lewis off in his own time and leaves. Lewis heads to the fair, but en route wakes up Goob just in time for him to make the winning catch, changing his future. Back at the fair, Lewis asks for one more chance to demonstrate his scanner, which this time succeeds. He is adopted by Lucille, one of the science fair judges, and her husband Bud, who nicknames him "Cornelius" and takes him to their home. As Lewis leaves, he turns and waves at Goob, who is also leaving the orphanage with a family of his own and a Little League trophy. The film ends with a quote by Walt Disney containing Lewis/Cornelius' motto: "Keep Moving Forward."

I went to the theater this afternoon to catch an R-rated film and goofed on the times. The only movie available in my time frame allowed was Meet the Robinsons. I reluctantly bought a ticket and was pleasantly rewarded with a movie experience that reminded me very much of my childhood. When we got to go to the movies in the 50's and 60's, there were trailers, followed by the newsreel and then a cartoon before the main attraction. The non-three D version started with non-R rated trailers, followed by a Mickey Mouse cartoon (loved it!) and then the main feature. It was very entertaining to sit back and relax and not worry about the good guys dying, the amount of slaughter that would be portrayed, or that there wouldn't be a positive message at the end. As an adult, there were enough references to keep me entertained and from the sounds of the kids in the theater, they were obviously enjoying this movie. I would highly recommend it to all but the crankiest movie-goers, and I personally loved the quote from Uncle Walt at the end of the movie. When I was little, our whole family watched Walt Disney every Sunday and I particularly remember when it changed to Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. Walt Disney was a man ahead of his time and I really miss his adventurous spirit and inquisitive mind. He introduced and ended each episode and I really enjoyed seeing him every week. I wish that Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color was still on every week and that new episodes would still be made.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much a 50's something mom of a teenager liked this movie.
Inspiring the Uninspired....