Movie Title: Meet the Robinsons
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (6/10)
Year: 2007
Meet the Robinsons official site: http://www.meettherobinsons.com/
The hype for 3D animations is back. This time around Disney is here to show us how weird… is weird. Smartly promoting their 2D skills, most cinemas will show a almost 10 minutes short 2D cartoon. The one I saw was the 1938 Micky Mouse’s “Boat Builders”.
Seriously, it’s kinda fun watching back some good old cartoon we all grow up to recognize. I notice everyone in the cinema had a good laugh watching the short cartoon. Right, I simply think it was a great move to cross sell their 2D stuff… just like how Pixar always show some short clips of their other 3D work. Something short but nice and best of all entertaining in every single way.
Movie begins with a sepia colour tone scene. A mysterious looking lady was carrying a new born baby quietly and secretly walk up to an orphanage building. Looking left and right.. she then left the baby at the doorstep. When the orphanage owner, Mildred (Angela Bassett) heard someone knocking on the door, she opened the door to find a cute new born baby lying in the box. She then took in the baby.
Years later, the little baby grew up to be an intelligent and creative boy named Lewis (Jordan Fry). Interested in science, Lewis comes out with lots of inventions. Everyday, without fail he would invent, invent and invent. Lewis is working on his newest peanut butter and jelly invention, thinking his invention could help his adopters in their daily life. Unknown to him, his adopters have serious allergy over peanuts. To make matters worst, his invention got stuck half way while demonstrating. The machine then blow out and mess up the whole room with peanut butter and jelly. The angry adopters left almost instantly.
Upset and frustrated, Lewis runs to the orphanage roof top. Mildred chase after him trying to make him felt better. Mildred was surprised when Lewis mention the amount of times he have been rejected by the adopters. Lewis felt so rejected and unwanted, he even mention how he felt so sad that his real mother didn’t actually want him. Mildred trying hard to calm Lewis down mentioning that his real mother might have difficulties raising him up or she feeling lost at the point of time. After listening to what Mildred have to say, Lewis is determined to find his real mother.
In order to find his mother, he would have to depend on his memory. Hence, Lewis decided to create a Memory Scanner to help him remember what he happen back then and help locate his mother Lewis drew sketches and more sketches. Lots of testing have been done to correct things. With him working on his Memory Scanner day and night, this caused his room mate Goob (Matthew Josten) to have sleepless nights.
Lewis is more than excited to show his latest invention at the Science Fair. Mildred told him to be back soon as she have arranged a meeting for Lewis to meet his new adopters. He even told Mildred he is tired of being rejected and his only intention now is to search for his real mother.
At the Science Fair, many other kids is ready to show what they have… some includes exploding volcano, fire ants. While trying to set up, Lewis bumps in to Wilbur (Wesley Singerman). Wilbur told Lewis he is a cop from the future and he has came to protect him from the Bowler Hat Guy (Stephen J. Anderson). The judges for the Science Fair lead by Dr. Lucille Krunklehorn (Laurie Metcalf) made their stop at Lewis’ table to look at his invention. They were quickly amazed when Lewis told them what his invention could do.
Unknown to Lewis, the Bowler Hat Guy and his atrocious hat, Doris is set to sabotage Lewis work. Doris went and unscrew some important part in Lewis’ invention which caused the invention to fail. It caused a big mess at the hall. Disappointed with the outcome, Lewis ran to the orphanage’s roof top again. He tear out all the drafts and sketches of the Memory Scanner. Wilbur helps him pick the sketches and ask Lewis to not give and go back to the Science Fair and fix the Memory Scanner.
Thinking it was a flop, Lewis refuse to return to the Science Fair and fix his machine. When Wilbur gets a little too pushy, Lewis doubted the fact that Wilbur is a police from future. Lewis asked Wilbur to prove that he is from the future. Left with no choice, Wilbur push Lewis down from the roof top where they landed on his spaceship (in stealth mode). Wilbur then brings Lewis on a ride and went to the future. Lewis was so amazed with what he saw and started to believe in Wilbur. Wilbur then asked Lewis to fix his Memory Scanner but Lewis refused to do so. He figure he could just go see his mother with this time machine.. instead of fixing the Memory Scanner.
They both got in to a fight which ended up crashing the time travel on the grass of the Robinsons mansion. Wilbur then make a deal with Lewis whereby he will bring him back in time to meet his mother if he will stay and fix the time machine.
The Bowler Hat Guy steals Lewis’ Memory Scanner invention when Lewis ran out from the Science Fair. He then brought the invention back to the future and tries to sell the idea as his. However he was unsuccessful as he have no idea how the machine functions and he don’t even know how to turn it on. He is then thrown out from the building. In order to fix the machine and knows how to make it work, the Bowler Hat Guy is set to capture Lewis.
On the other hand, Wilbur hides Lewis in the garage and told Lewis to not go anywhere, stay there and fix the time travel. Worried that Lewis is easily recognized, Wilbur even put on a fruit punch hat so that no one could see his hair. While trying to look for Wilbur, Lewis got sucked in through the tubes and ended up at the Robinson’s garden. There he got to meet Wilbur’s grandfather who is busy looking for his teeth, Wilbur’s uncle, mother, cousin… ah almost everyone except for his dad.
Soon it was dinner time, Lewis join along and was introduced as Wilbur’s classmate. He had so much fun at the dinner table. There Lewis saw some invention similar to his peanut butter and jelly machine. Like what happen before, it got stuck and Wilbur suggested Lewis to fix it. The outcome is similar to what happen previously. The machine exploded and mess up the whole dining area. Instead of being angry, Wilbur’s family supported Lewis.
The Bowler Hat Guy then peeks around the Robinson’s mansion trying to capture Lewis. He tries to hypnotize a few animals in to capturing Lewis… which includes hypnotizing one of Wilbur’s mum, Franny’s (Nicole Sullivan) genetically enhanced singing frogs. When the plan was proven to fail, The Bowler Hat Guy went back to the past and grab a T-Rex and brought it to the future to capture Lewis. Proven that The Bowler Hat guy just isn’t a born to be villain, his plans fail again.
After all the drama, The Robinsons decided to adopt Lewis as a family member. Lewis was excited and gladly accept the offer. Wilbur knows things like this could not happen and he purposely pulled Lewis hat off to reveal them. When the Robinsons know Lewis was from the past, the family told him it is impossible for them to adopt him. To make matter worst, Wilbur blurb out that the promises he make to Lewis was fake. He did that so that Lewis would help fix the spoilt time travel.
Feeling frustrated and cheated, Lewis ran away with the Bowler Hat Guy who promise to bring him see his mother if he would help him fix the Memory Scanner. Right after he fix and show the Bowler Hat Guy how to operate the machine, he revealed that Lewis is actually Wilbur’s father in the future. He also told Lewis that he is actually his room mate, Goob in the past. He blames Lewis for turning him to be what he is now. Apparently, Goob lost the most important baseball game by falling asleep and he fails to catch the ball. He blames it all on Lewis because Lewis work day and night on his Memory Scanner and make it hard for him to fall asleep.
After the lost, he becomes grumpy and eventually scares away a lot of adopters and left alone in the orphanage. He even told Lewis that Doris is one of his invention which he later shut down when he notices Doris have her own thinking and plans. However Doris escapes and partner up with Goob to take revenge.
Wilbur tries to save Lewis but failed as the Bowler Hat Guy ran them down with the time travel machine he stole from Wilbur. The Bowler Hat Guy then runs to InventCo Inc. trying to show them his Memory Scanner machine and change history. As the Bowler Hat Guy is about to sign the contract, Lewis notice things around him is changing and Wilbur is disappearing. Lewis then head to the garage and he manage to fix the time travel and go back in time to stop the Bowler Hat Guy from signing the papers.
When Doris tries to stop him, Lewis look up to Doris and told her he will never ever invent her and Doris disappears in thin air. Lewis then takes the Bowler Hat Guy for a ride in the time machine to notice that Doris was actually using him. She plans to turn the future world to a dark world where the hats rule the world by mind-controlling everyone who wears them.
The Bowler Hat Guy then seeks for forgiveness. Lewis then asked Wilbur and his family to take the Bowler Hat Guy as family. Before they could say yes, the Bowler Hat Guy walk away. Wilbur then met up with the future him whereby he show him a lot of things that he had done. Wilbur then decides to send Lewis back to the present. Before going back… he drop by at the past on the night Lewis’ mum decided to abandon Lewis, keeping his earlier promise.
However he just let his mother walk out from him when he got the chance to see how she actually look like. Wilbur then asked Lewis why he did that, Lewis only replied… he have a happy family in the future. Wilbur just smile and send Lewis back.
Back at the present times, Lewis tries to fix things. He walk pass the baseball field just in time to wake Goob up which resulted a different ending. He then goes back to the Science Fair asking for a second try. The judges decides that Lewis deserve a second try. Dr. Lucille volunteer herself as the subject to the experiment. When the Memory Scanner manages to show the actual event that happen back then, Lewis knew who they were. She was Wilbur’s grandparents which means they adopted Lewis. At the Science Fair, Lewis also stumbles upon a cute girl who has a display involving frogs. Lewis quickly know she will be his future wife and they soon started to be friends.
Being a typical Disney cartoon, all of it surely an educational ones. With content like never stop trying, don’t give up when meet with failures and of course the core.. keep moving forward. Like Chicken Little, I somehow think this animation is yet another forgettable one. Okay… at least Chicken Little was more memorable due to it’s catchy song but Meet the Robinsons just fail to capture me as something different.
The character development was rather surface as a lot of other characters weren’t really groomed up. Everyone have quite too little show time. At a point, I even felt they tried too hard to fit too many characters to the show.
Yes, there isn’t anything technically wrong with the show… but it just fails to light me up. Surely not one of the best animation movie of the year. See it if your kids, nephews, cousins bug you to bring them to the cinema. Watch it only if you ran out of options to see in the cinema.