SCREEN

Meet the Robinsons

Matthew Scott Hunter

This animated time-travel adventure tells the story of a young inventor and orphan named Lewis. After a string of failed adoption interviews and inventions gone haywire, Lewis is feeling pretty disillusioned. Matters get worse when Lewis' entry in the science fair is sabotaged by a mysterious villain in a bowler hat. As it turns out, Bowler Hat Guy has come from the future to steal Lewis' invention and pass it off as his own. But an ally has traveled back in time to help—young Wilbur Robinson. Together, Lewis and Wilbur travel Back to the Future (a film, by the way, to which this movie owes much), and Lewis discovers a world that bears an uncanny resemblance to his inventions.

After arriving in the world of tomorrow, Lewis meets Wilbur's family in a dizzying sequence of human cannons, singing frogs and heads popping inexplicably out of potted plants. There are grandparents, aunts and uncles, a guy who delivers pizzas via spacecraft and a one-eyed octopus who answers the door. Even after a who's-who recap, I couldn't tell you how many people make up the extended Robinson clan. But all of them will work with feverish enthusiasm to keep the random gags rolling in.

Random is the best word to describe the jokes in Meet the Robinsons. There's a kung-fu food fight that breaks out during dinner and a rat pack of tuxedo-clad, crooning frogs with hints of organized-crime connections. Even within the context of the future world, these things seem downright bizarre. The humor is all over the map. If a scene calls for one joke, we're often treated to several. On the bright side, this means that if four jokes bomb, you don't realize it until you're well into the next three.

There are enough funny gags and visual delights to keep adults interested, and kids are sure to enjoy the fast-paced madness of it all. Parents may have to explain to their children the nature of temporal paradoxes, self-fulfilling prophecies and alternate timelines afterward, but I suppose that's a talk you have to have with your kids sooner or later.

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