Robots A Movie Review	MPAA Rated - PG It's 1:31 Long A Review by The Dude on the Right

The folks who brought us "Ice Age" bring us the adventures of Rodney Copperbottom (Ewan McGregor), a robot with a dream, and his misfit cast of friends. We are introduced to Rodney as he is "born" into his new family, with dad missing the delivery of his new son. In this world, though, babies are delivered as a box of parts, and as mom explains, it’s much more fun to make the baby. Mom and dad aren’t that well off, and they live in the lovely small town of Rivet City where everyone knows everyone else. As Rodney is growing up, his clothing consists mostly of hand-me-downs, but he dreams of being an inventor, thanks to his hero Bigweld (Mel Brooks), who has a TV show and lives the slogan "You can shine no matter what you’re made of!", all the while running Bigweld Industries that make parts and supplies for robots. When Rodney gets fired from his busboy job where he worked with his dad (dad is a dishwasher, literally,) Rodney decides he must find his way to Robot City where he is sure Bigweld will be impressed with his coffee-pot invention that can do all kind of fun things.

So Rodney is off to pursue his dream, only he doesn’t realize that strange things are afoot at Bigweld Industries. It appears Ratchet (Greg Kinnear) and Ratchet’s mother have different plans for the company, namely their plan for world domination by getting rid of the misfit robots, or "Rusties" as they are called, and creating an elitist society of super-duper, wealthy robots. Their plan is simple – quit making replacement parts for the Rusties, only supplying upgrade kits that the Rusties can’t afford, and as the Rusties become obsolete, they will get rounded up, melted, and remolded into upgrade kits.

As it would be, Rodney breaks his way into a company board meeting only to find Bigweld is nowhere to be found, sees that weird things are going on at the company, and his dreams of being an inventor seem to be foiled. As he finds his way into the friendship of some of the Rusties, namely Fender (Robin Williams), Crank (Drew Carey), and Piper (Amanda Bynes), he starts putting two and two together, especially when parts aren’t available for his dad, and with the help of his friends and a revitalized Bigweld (not really a surprise on the "this is a surprise" part of the movie,) they work to destroy the dastardly plans of Ratchet and mom.

I really wanted to like this movie, and I’ll tell you what, visually it is utterly amazing what they are able to do with computer animation these days, but I just couldn’t get involved with the story. The underlying theme, you should always follow your dreams, was nice, but as I tried to figure out what was missing, I think it came down to I couldn't connect with them emotionally, and for me, the story was too predictable.

I didn’t really hear the kids laughing that much, sure during the inevitable farting scene, but not so much other than that. With that I can’t really give you a rundown if the kids were entertained, but for me, I was more entertained by the subtle things that happened, like the creative use of an electric plug as the sign for the male robot bathroom and the electric receptacle as the sign for the female robot bathroom, and even when Fender breaks into some Britney Spears I had to chuckle, but for the most part the story just seemed to move along to its logical conclusion.

For the animation I’m giving "Robots" 5 stars out of 5; For being entertaining and allowing us to get attached to the characters it’s only 1 star out of 5. I’ll average those together and knock off ½ star because writers need to get more creative than just putting in a fart joke for cheap laughs, and it’s 2 ½ stars out of 5.

Sure, you’ll have to take the kids, and there are some fun things if you really look for them, but for me I just sat their knowing that somehow Rodney would save the day and his dad would get the part he needed.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!