Robots (2005)

Fairly thrilling in its earlier stages, when it's exploring the particulars of the complex world that has been created for it. Setpieces like the public-transportation gambit or the ball-bearing ballet possess a gee-whiz kind of enthusiasm that seems missing from so many lowest-common-denominator family films these days. When the plot kicks in, though, the film jumps back into the assembly line, trading its beautifully low-tech Rube Goldbergisms for stale platitudes and fart jokes. By the film's end, the irony has become too thick to bear: Here we have a film championing the imperfect and the individual over processed, soulless conformity, but the end product is just as generic (though nowhere near as obnoxious) as anything PDI has ever done. At least they got a decent song for the now-obligatory closing musical number -- a funky, sound-collage version of "Get Up Offa That Thing". (And a question: Between this and Shrek 2, when did Tom Waits get the thumbs-up as a family-friendly troubador? Not that I'm complaining... I think it'd be great if kids grew up on aggressively weird music like Waits rather than Britney and Xtina. I'm just curious.)

Grade: C+