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Reel To Reel:
Robots

How It Rates: **1/2
Starring: Voices Of Ewan McGregor, Robin Williams, Halle Berry, Mel Brooks
Rated: PG
Red Flags: Comic Book Violence, Some Bathroom Humor

Preconceived Notions: Some generous star power for an animated flick.
The Bottom Line: It runs, but it's no well-oiled machine.

Comparing Robots, a product of Fox Animation Studios, with anything from Pixar is like comparing a Lincoln Towncar to a Rolls Royce. Both will get you there, but only one has the real style. Yes, Robots is entertaining. It's truly funny at times. It has a message for kids about following your dreams. But it lacks a level for adults which Pixar or even DreamWorks Animation weaved into films like The Incredibles or Shrek.

Enough comparing though. On its own merits, Robots is great for the kids, filling the screen with dozens of cute machines reminiscent of 40's and 50's wind-up toys and some inventive chase sequences. One scene involving countless dominoes will leave your mouth hanging open. But the movie as a whole suffers from sudden bursts of acceleration, with action inserted to hide a fragmented plot. It's as if somebody keeps winding it up and letting it run down.

In a world populated by cute machines, a young robot named Rodney Copperbottom (McGregor) hopes to become the next great inventor. He's just pieced together a worker-bee like home appliance which can help you with just about anything, provided you don't scare him. Rodney sets out for the big city in search of his idol Bigweld (voice of Mel Brooks), the robot world's version of Ron Popeil. But Bigweld's company has been taken over by Ratchet (voice of Greg Kinnear), and his evil mother. Ratchet's new Microsoftian corporate vision is upgrades, not spare parts. Under his plan, countless robots are headed for the scrap heap.

Not if Rodney can help it. He teams up with a motley crew of spare-part misfits including the manic Fender (Williams) and Cappy (Berry), one of Ratchet's corporate minions -- and a robot that will led to nerd arguments about whether Halle Berry or her on-screen persona has the sexier body. Together they head off to find Bigweld and get him back in command.

Williams' performance is by far the most enjoyable of the film (when has Williams not been enjoyable, except in maybe Death To Smoochy?). It throws in sly references to Britney Spears, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, The Wizard Of Oz and even Kukla, Fran and Ollie. But everything else is knock-around action, like watching a pinball machine from under the glass. The film tries to freshen a plot we've seen countless times before -- the boy who saves the world -- but it's still there. "You can shine no matter what you're made of," Bigweld says to the world. True, but you're still going to need some polish now and then.