Disney's finest effort in years
Directed by Stephen Anderson, Meet the Robinsons is perhaps one of the most exciting Disney animations in a long time, and one that pays tribute to Walt Disney, the father of American cartoons.
Not only does the film end with a long quotation by Disney, but the hero Lewis, a 12-year-old orphan voiced by Daniel Hansen, is the kind of self-made wonder kid who, like Disney before him, believes he can change the world through imagination and technology.
This is a belief that all good cartoonists must also have clung to over the years. How else could they spend hours sitting at their desks (now in front of a computer screen) to produce a single second of moving image.
Loosely based on a popular children's book by American writer and illustrator William Joyce, the film focuses on Lewis's difficult childhood. He is - like most geniuses - misunderstood by adults. He therefore invents a memory scanner so that he can find his mother, who abandoned him on the doorstep of an orphanage when was a baby.
But his invention, which will eventually change the course of history, is stolen by Bowler Hat Guy, a villain from the future who, predictably, wears a bowler hat.
But not everyone in the future is evil, and Wilbur Robinson comes to the rescue. He whisks the bewildered Lewis away in a time machine and together they try to track down Bowler Hat Guy.
While the plot is relatively simple compared with other Disney productions, Meet the Robinsons is surprisingly sweet and fun. There is a chorus of singing frogs that Wilbur's mother conducts, a purple octopus that works as a doorkeeper, a robot similar to R2D2 in Star Wars and even a T-Rex brought by the villain from the Jurassic age to chase after Lewis.
In addition to the action and humour, Meet the Robinsons has a heart-tugging message: don't look back in regret, or anger.
Mr Robinson's motto is 'keep moving forward'. There is a bittersweet moment towards the end of the film when Lewis, thanks to the time-travel machine, has the opportunity to try stopping his mother from abandoning him on that fateful rainy night. But will he do so? Or will he 'keep moving forward' and accept life as it is?
Meet the Robinsons is one of the few Disney animations in recent years that Walt Disney himself would have been proud of.
VERDICT: WE LOVE IT
