As with Wedge's last outing with "Ice Age", some adult innuendo suggestive enough for adults to get, for subtle enough for kids to remain clueless to. Upon their baby being delivered, the wife holds up the box construction kit and replies "Don't worry, making the baby is the fun part", and when Rodney's parents discover an "extra part" left over
from Rodney, his dad asks "Did we want a girl or a boy?" There is also the advantage of the great cast whom excel at occasionally enthusiastic voice work including Amanda Bynes, and Jennifer Coolidge who seem to be having fun with their characters.

I wish I could have liked "Robots". With some great animation, and a creative team that seems mostly dedicated to bringing this great animation to the screen, they never seem to care enough about bringing any sort of life or originality to what is inevitably a very forgettable piece of animated fodder that I gather not even children will like. "Robots" is more a display of artist's bravado than imaginative storytelling. In the concept of "The most unexpected things have their own world" category, "Robots" is a town filled with robots whom have zany misadventures, many devices of which were better captured with much better animated epics. In the end, the film comes off as more of a low rent "Toy Story" mixed with "Monster's Inc.". "Robots" is often times too anti-septic and generic to be enjoyed as fluff, and its too bland to be taken as entertainment. Much like "Tomorrow Land" in the World's Fair gone haywire, each and every robot in this film have the designs of kitschy artificial kitchen ware, including Rodney whose face resembles the door prizes at old houseware conventions in the fifties. Each robot is painted with stark bold colors of silver, gold, yellow, and blue.

Though, this film manages to present a somewhat varied array of original concepts with a town that uses different mechanisms to help its residents get around the city, and denizens whom all serve their own purpose, something is lost within all the hustle and bustle of exposing these odds and ends. Life. There is no life, and almost zero energy here for any of its target audience to enjoy. The scenery and landscape introduced to the audience is dull and basically run of the mill, and it helps that there's not much to enjoy beyond that. With such an obscenely large cast, nothing is ever really taken from the hollow experience, "Robots" is a film you'll forget about an hour after you've seen it. There are no real stand out characters within the fold of oddball supporting players from Aunt Fanny, to Viper, to Rodney, you can sense the actors are anxious to instill a sense of life to these concepts that never become anything but what's presented to us.

None of them ever become beings we can relate to or like, many are just there for running gags, others are plot devices, and the main characters are just forgettable. Rodney is boring, his love interest played with wooden acting by Berry is forgettable, Kinnear basically sleepwalks through his role as the resident villain as the hotshot exec who is a momma's boy, while there is a tearjerker sub-plot with Rodney's dad who is in need of help. Meanwhile, Robin Williams plays the same character he played in "Aladdin" and "Treasure Planet", the goofy incorrigible sidekick who takes on appearances and gives off multiple voices that are more irritating than funny most times.

There's also never really a single memorable moment during the ninety minutes of gags that all fell flat. And it's hard to believe that in a movie filled with robots, there are jokes involving flatulence, almost to an uncomfortable degree that also goes on much too long. As for the plot, it's all just by the numbers and tacked on as it went and is never engaging enough to draw your attention to it at all times. Everything ends up presented as your standard story. A humble hero, evil corporation, epic showdown, feel good climax, yadda yadda, there's nothing here worth mentioning or even scoffing at. It's a shame so much resources are simply wasted in a hail of computer graphics.

Yet another example that great animation and a large cast does not a good film make. In spite of amusing moments thrown here and there, and the good cast of actors, "Robots" fails to grab energy and excitement from its concept and transform in to a fun kids film, but ends up as an over-budget forgettable vehicle that no one will remember in ten years.

• The Tinman from "The Wizard of Oz" makes a cameo. Seriously.
• When Rodney is operating on a robot and his nose lights up red, it's a reference to the famous board game "Operation".
• When Rodney is re-programming Mr. Bigweld's brain causing him to sing "Daisy Daisy" slowly, it's a reference to the de-programming of HAL in "2001: A Space Odyssey".
• In the hardware store, the voice box played by James Earl Jones (Darth Vader) says "The Force is strong in this one" about Rodney Copperbottom. Rodney is played by Ewan McGregor who plays Obi Wan Kenobi in the "Star Wars" prequel films.

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