Movie Review: Meet the Robinsons

Title: Meet the Robinsons
Author: Disney
Genre: family, adventure, sci-fi, future, animation
My Rating: ****
Official Rating: G
Age Group: 8+

Summary: Poor Lewis is an orphan who is full of great ideas for inventions that, well, just don't seem to work. He's feeling pretty down and out and is about to give up inventing altogether when he meets a strange boy named Wilbur. Wilbur informs Lewis that he (Wilbur) is from the future. Then he kidnaps Lewis into a world so much better than the one Lewis was living in.
As Lewis helps Wilbur fight off the evil Bowler Hat Man, he comes to love Wilbur's family very much, especially since he doesn't have one of his own. Time is ticking though and Bowler Hat Man needs to be stopped. Wilbur is desperate; Lewis is distracted by the family life he never had.
Can the two boys succeed in saving the world from the terrible fate Bowler Hat Man wants to bring down upon everyone?

Word of Warning

• A mother leaves her child on the orphanage steps. This being left behind haunts the child forever and he feels unwanted.
• A man turns red and swells up, reacting to peanuts. It's done more as comic relief than something serious. We find out later that he's alright, but before that his wife stabs him in the leg with an Epi-Pen (also comical).
• There is a cartoon explosion but no one is injured.
• A caffeine patch allows its wearer to stay up for days. The woman wearing it comes across as slightly crazy.
• A man is attacked by fire-ants (again, comical).
• A kid pushes another kid off a building--onto an invisible ship.
• Kids crash a flying machine but are fine.
• The line "Mom and Dad will kill me, and it won't be done with mercy" is said seriously in a mourning tone but is obviously meant to be funny.
• A kid remarks that his family is going to bury him alive and dance on his grave. He then admits that this might be a bit of an exaggeration.
• A pillar falls on a guy. We are left to assume he's fine, but really don't know.
• A frog wears a man's dentures. The owner takes them and puts them back in his mouth without washing them.
• Insults: puke face, booger breath
• Frogs go to a frog-bar and order "one dragonfly on the rocks."
• An old man is seen in boxers.
• A dinosaur tries to capture and eat a kid. This results in an episode which involves the family humorously, but seriously, trying to save the kid's life.
• A frog cries, "I gotta go pee!"
• A kid turns into smoke and blows away (because he no longer exists because the past has been changed).
• People run from mind-controlling bowler hats.
• People try to attack the main character because they are being controlled by the hats.
• A building is a giant hat which chases a kid who flees using a flying ship. The giant hat-building is clearly trying to kill the kid.
• A man claims his clothes aren't on backward, his head is.
• The last twenty minutes of the movie have a very dark tone to them as things happening in the past ruin the future and make it absolutely miserable.
  

My Thoughts
At first, I thought this was just another cute movie that involved a poor kid who doesn't feel wanted. There would be some sort of adventure, then he would learn he was wanted afterall.
And that all happened of course. But as the movie progressed it became darker. Not dark as in dark magic, but dark as in more solemn and serious and scary. Granted, it wasn't that scary, but in contrast to the first part of the movie the darkness was shocking.
Overall though, a great cute movie that can be shared with nearly the whole family. It's full of laughs, a great but crazy family, and a boy who finally learns that if he never gives up, he will eventually get something good--even if it's not what he had originally hoped for.