Though Michelle, (Millie Bobby Brown), is not one to embrace the robot culture. We first see her at an eastern US High School with her close younger brother Christopher, (Woody Norman). Just passing a high level maths test, he looks like he's off to College early. They both seem to be having an idyllic nuclear family life at this time but there are dark clouds on the horizon.
Flash forward to a few months later. Due to deteriorating robot's rights, there's been an insurrection and war breaks out between them and people but initially the humans find themselves losing to their robot overlords. Tech Billionaire Ethan Skate, (Stanley Tucci) then creates a new way to fight back by adapting his already popular VR headsets to connect to soldier droids, which of course he also manufactures. A truce is eventually called in 1993 and the robots co-sign a peace treaty but are banished to a massive walled wilderness in New Mexico.
In this post war America the human VR controlled droids now become the servants but as a result most humans become lazy and keep the headsets on constantly, allowing their surroundings to slowly deteriorate. In one of these untidy houses, Michelle is now alone and in foster care with a constantly grumpy, lazy man as her entire family has died in a road accident. One night she here's a noise in the yard. By flashlight in the shed, she discovers a lone runaway robot that she recognises as one her young brother loved in a popular cartoon on TV. More then that, it convinces her that it contains the mind of Christopher who's body is alive but being held in New Mexico. She decides then and there to steal her foster father's car and take the robot to go and find her brother.
This is a pretty simple premise that has been used lots before in Science Fiction stories. Someone goes on a quest to find a lost family member and acquires extra team members along the way. In this case it's Keats, (Chris Pratt). A truck driver who lives with his robot best mate in a warehouse bunker just outside the walled wilderness.
It really is Pratt that lifts this cookie cutter plot although Brown is solid and holds her own in their joint scenes. In a film with only a handful humans with speaking roles, the abundance of talking characters here are the robots. Their leader, Mr. Peanut, voiced by Woody Harrelson becomes a major player in the second act onwards.
The imagination that has gone in to create their myriad of wonderful, designs, shapes and personalities are very impressive. The CGI is immaculate so you genuinely accept all the robots and droids are right there with the humans. We definitely take animated characters like these for granted these days. The ending was fairly predictable but well choregraphed and I would imagine it would look good on cinema screens too.
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