A recent review in the New York Times labeled Disney’s newest animated film, Meet the Robinsons, “one of the worst theatrically released animated features issued under the Disney label in quite some time.” While I have to agree that the first half of the film was excruciatingly painful, when all was said and done there actually was a decent story buried in there. If only we as an audience had been informed of that a bit earlier…
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
First off, I was lucky enough to see Meet the Robinsons in 3D and while it was not specifically designed for a stereoscopic experience, the effect was highly entertaining and worth the trip to a theater showing it in all three dimensions.
Unfortunately, my 3D glasses did nothing to improve the basic structure of the story.
I was so uncomfortable and so angry at the film that I could barely sit still in my seat. I felt my life wasting away as one character after another flashed on the screen, screamed at the top of his lungs, and then was quickly replaced by another. I was just about to get up and leave when my cell phone started going off (on vibrate of course).
Let us know what kind of a story you are telling
In the course of two minutes I received no less than 5 phone calls from various people. One was my wife, who I quickly texted back that I was “watching robinsons and its horrible.” The other 4 calls I let go to voicemail.
When I looked up from my phone, I was surprised to see that the film had completely changed. I became engaged with the characters and cared about the ending. I couldn’t believe what was going on. I started to get even more angry as I actually started to like the film! How could I be into a film that was precisely as the New York Times had said it was? I even managed to get choked up at the heartfelt ending. What was going on?!
After much consideration, I came to the conclusion that the story of Meet the Robinsons didn’t really start until that moment when I was interrupted - about halfway through the film. I say halfway because, thanks to the timestamp on the calls, I know it happened exactly 45 minutes into the film (about the midpoint of a typical animated film). And those first 45 minutes were painful.
There was so much absurdity with the introduction of Wilbur Robinson’s family that as an audience member you felt like the filmmakers had no idea what they were doing. I didn’t care about anyone in the film because I didn’t understand the stakes. It wasn’t until Will was revealed as Lewis’s son and the Bowler Hat Guy was revealed as a grown-up Goob that I finally cared. “Ahh,” I said to myself. “This is what the story is about.”
So what’s wrong with that, you may ask? Didn’t The Sixth Sense do the same thing? What about Memento or The Usual Suspects? You had no idea what was really going on in those until the end.
That’s true. But those great stories had something very different from Robinsons. Their deceptions were an inherent part of their story structure.
Was Cole really seeing dead people? Who was John G. and why did Leonard have all those tatoos? And who was Keyser Soze? These questions were essential to the throughlines of those stories. They were not simply misunderstandings on the part of the audience’s reception of those stories.
And these throughlines were established from the very beginning of those stories. You were engaged from the word go because you knew the consequences that were at stake. And because of that, you cared about the story and the characters involved. While you may not have understood completely what was going on, you knew there was a direction it was going and thus, were comfortable knowing that some outcome was forthcoming. In your head you sensed that there was some greater argument occurring.
These other films also had an advantage over Robinsons in that the nature of their stories, or their genre, was that of mystery and deception. Robinsons was supposed to be a light-hearted children’s film.
But unfortunately, what was supposed to be light-hearted simply came off as assaultive. Especially the sequence where you are introduced to the wacky Robinson family. What was the point of all that? The “kung-fu fighting” sequence and the singing frogs sequence were both so asinine that I really felt like the entire of Disney Animation had lost its collective mind.
Like the tumblers on a lock, I kept waiting and waiting for the objective and subjective stories to click into place. You knew that the Bowler Hat guy wanted the Memory invention for some reason, but you never understood that the future of the entire world was at stake until halfway into it.
How much greater would it have been to reveal this dismal future earlier on in the story? Clue the audience in on how Lewis’s actions or lack of actions will influence things. Let us know what kind of a story you’re telling us.
That moment when the family finally comes to learn that Lewis is really their patriarch comes off as completely false. It’s such a cruel thing for them to offer to adopt him, and then suddenly refuse to at the sight of his hair. As an audience member, you have no other option then to scrunch your face in consternation and say, “Why the hell would that family do that?” If instead, we as an audience knew why they reacted that way, their refusal of him would have been completely acceptable.
It was as if we went to an Ibsen play and were greeted to the sight of someone on stage chopping their arm off. We gasped in horror as the appendage fell to the floor and wondered if we were in the right building. Then, before we could make a quick exit to the lobby, the person on stage picked up his arm, re-attached it and shouted, “Ta-da!! Would you like to see some more magic?” And then we slowly sat back down, “Well, sure, we love magic. Sure wish we had known that’s what you were doing in the first place.”
Besides, it’s such a great and fun concept to have Lewis’s future son be his Impact Character. There’s a lot of fun stuff when 12-year old Lewis is scolding his 13-year old son, “I am your father, you know,” grabbing his ear and pulling him aside. Those Subjective Story moments are fantastic and very heartfelt. Why wouldn’t you let the audience enjoy that sooner? The time spent on the absurd moments really took away from time that could’ve been better spent exploring the heart of the story.
As I said in the beginning, I think I ended up liking this story, only reluctantly. If you do go see it, don’t leave early — it does get better! I think though, that if I do pick up this DVD, I’ll only burn the last half of it to my media center hard drive. It’ll save me some space and really, I won’t be missing that much.
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