I watched this at Odeon on the 15th of November, 2024. It had such promise! The visuals are absolutely stunning, Dreamworks has found a new style and is KILLING it, there were such strong hints of Puss in Boots, and the gorgeous blend of 2D and 3D was spectacular.
Most of the movie was just amazing, the process of the robot learning about its environment and taking care of the young duck was utterly fantastic and natural, and even the bit about it mothering the duckling was well done and not ham-fisted at all, surprisingly. When it finally flew and left the island was an incredibly poignant moment, remarkable for being touching and novel despite the story being a very old one.
It was let down by the ending. I particularly liked throughout how they maintained the robot’s artificiality and remove from the process of evolution, but then they slipped and made it basically human, when the whole narrative tension came from this difference. I get that it’s for kids, obviously, but it felt like a cheapening of the whole gimmick. I admit I have no idea about how they’d get a satisfying conclusion out of this story, they probably needed the big fight, they needed to make the big corporation evil, they needed to make the animals work together but - wouldn’t it have been an interesting story if they made, for example, the robot leave so the animals, having observed kindness, worked together by themselves? Idk, glorious movie let down by the ending.