Robots (DVD)

How a film like Robots grossed less at the box-office than Madagascar I will never know. Just as a quick comparison, in not too many words, Robots was good and Madagascar was horrible, yet there was almost a $70 million dollar difference at the box-office. Granted $128 million for Robots is a damn nice payday, but the $190 million for Madagascar is completely unexplainable, the movie was dreadful, but I guess I better stay on topic... Robots...

Yeah, here we are, we find ourselves in a world run by robots and robots alone, Robot City, and we are introduced to our main character Rodney Copperbottom as he is growing up into his teenage years. Rodney is a bit of a dreamer and an aggressive one at that as his eyes are firmly set on becoming a top inventor. His motivation has grown ever since he was a little boy and he first saw Mr. Big Weld (Mel Brooks), the head cheese of Big Weld Industries, on TV telling the viewing audience that "You Can Shine No Matter What You Are Made Of!" This becomes our motto as Rodney's main motivation is actually his dishwashing father who is quickly becoming worn down, so off to Robot City he goes in high hopes of achieving his dream, but once he gets there he finds out it isn't the world he saw on TV.

Big Weld Industries is being overthrown by a maniacal robot named Ratchet (Greg Kinnear) who along with a couple of nudges from his grotesque mother (Jim Broadbent) his goal is to one day rid the world of the robots that are falling apart and cannot afford upgrades. His goal is to either get you to pay or be sent to the trash heap, and Rodney's father along with his new friends are heading for that trash heap unless someone can find Big Weld and get him back in the driver's seat.

With a large voice cast that includes the likes of Robin Williams, Drew Carey and even Halle Berry Robots not only looks phenomenal it is downright entertaining.

As far as this DVD is concerned Fox has put together an impressive package of special features for animation fans and the kids. Including two audio commentaries, deleted scenes, a "Meet the Bots" profile featurette, a Blue Man Group featurette (they did some of the music for the feature), interactive games, original Robots test footage, a sneak peek at Ice Age 2 and some DVD-ROM stuff for you people that just can't get enough.

Out of the bunch I actually enjoyed the first commentary with the director Chris Wedge and production designer/producer William Joyce, of the two this one was a bit livelier and a little less technical than the one with the Blue Sky Tech boys. Other than that, the other standout was the "Meet the Bots" featurette which allowed you to take a peek at early sketches of the robots, 3-D 360 looks at them and a quick interview with the actor that voiced each one.

Overall, I think Robots is the best animated feature of the year so far, which isn't exactly saying a lot, but depending on how good the remaining competition such as Corpse Bride you never know this one could take home the Oscar.