Meet The Robinsons (2007)
(In theaters, April 2007) This second Disney CGI effort after the uneven Chicken Little is a good step up for the new animation house: Not only is it a solid kid’s film, it espouses a number of worthwhile values and even presents a mission statement of sort of Disney itself. Not bad for a film dealing with a genius twin being carried away in the future. The pacing is brisk, the characters are surprisingly well-defined, the animation is fine and little of it is saccharine or maudlin. Better yet: the film often allows itself little forays in bizarre territory, such as when a dozen characters are introduced in ninety seconds, or when a family dinner turns into a cheaply dubbed martial arts sequence. Not exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from the fairly standard trailer. Perhaps the best thing about this film from a purely geek perspective is how it embraces the notion of technological progress as an extension of human values; that’s a nice SF attitude right there, and it does much to make me fond of the movie. (Heck, I even went back two weeks later to see it as a 3-D feature and still enjoyed it.)