DreamWorks Animation has had its fair share of highs and lows over the years. As a studio, it’s struggled to chase the highs of the early 2000s, with the Shrek series. Lately, they’ve been making their way back with better-than-expected entries like The Bad Guys and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and while I had hopes for its new entry, The Wild Robot, I’ve been burned by the folks at DreamWorks before. Imagine my relief to find one of the best animated films in years, and probably one of the strongest entries in the DreamWorks Animation library to date. The Wild Robot is a total delight – it’s joyful, poignant, hilarious and heartfelt, and it combines different tones and animated styles in ways that seem effortless.

ROZZUM Unit 7134, or Roz (Lupita Nyong’o) is one of several abandoned robots who awakens on an uninhabited island. She struggles to acquaint herself with the island’s wildlife, including a mischievous fox (Pedro Pascal) and a wise opossum (Catherine O’Hara). An accident wipes out a goose nest, leaving behind one single gosling that awakens and imprints itself on her, giving her a mission to raise it as her own. She gives him the name ‘Brightbill’ (Kit Connor), and takes care of it until the time comes for his first migration.

Lupita Nyong’o is giving a truly wonderful voice performance, especially when you consider the evolution that Roz must go through. She is quite literally a robot that has to learn to care about something, and care for it deeply. And while Roz becomes more and more sentient and emotional, she’s still a robot, and that seems like it would be a challenging thing for an actor to convey, and Nyong’o does a very fine job at taking the viewer through this journey. Pedro Pascal is also really good as the troublemaking fox who has his own character evolution.  I was also impressed by Kit Connor, from the breakout Netflix series Heartstopper, mainly because I had never heard him before without a British accent, and I did not know this was him until the end credits. He plays what would be like the teenage version of Brightbill, and he does a very nice job.

Chris Sanders, who directed Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon directs here, also adapting from a series of popular books from Peter Brown. And there is so much emotional humanity ingrained in this story, so much for a story that has almost no human characters. And there is so much universality in this story’s themes, from motherhood, to a found community, to the concept of letting go. It’s beautifully animated, it’s CG animation but it has a hand drawn feel, and has such a beautiful and compelling visual style throughout, and it’s so exciting to look at. DreamWorks also tried some out of the box animated visuals in the recent Puss in Boots movie, which also paid off in a big way. I think this is further evidence that we need to be taking risks in movies like this, that a big swing can really pay off.

If there’s one thing wrong here, it’s that we have an expository character, a goose played by Bill Nighy, who will stop the story in its tracks to explain things to the viewer. I would have liked if this script allowed the viewer a little more faith to trust that children and adults are equally capable of paying attention and picking up on story or character beats that might not be verbalized with dialogue. But considering that’s my biggest complaint here, I feel like it’s a minor one, and there is so much more going on here that is absolutely worth the viewer’s time.

Overall, I was delighted with the vast majority of The Wild Robot. This is a warm, humane, sensitive narrative filled with visual gags that will keep the younger viewers entertained, but a worldview and a striking emotional truth that will keep the grown-ups in the room entertained, and will likely bring a tear or two to their eye. I haven’t seen DreamWorks achieve this kind of go-for-the-heartstrings emotional depth before. This is something normally reserved for what Pixar does, and it’s a thing they’ve struggled with lately. To see DreamWorks animation throwing its hat into the ring with a film that immediately feels like the obvious choice to win the Best Animated Feature Oscar statue next year, is quite the impressive feat. The Wild Robot is a visually dazzling, beautifully performed and deeply poignant and emotional masterclass in animation, and it sounds silly, but there really is something worthwhile here for just about any viewer.