Robots

A metal guy needs a friend in the cold-hearted, consumer-driven world of Robots.

Herald rating: ****

Welcome to Rivet City, where Herb Copperbottom (voice: Stanley Tucci) and his wife have a new son. A kitset son, for the Copperbottoms and their neighbours are robots.

Fast-forward a few years and young Rodney (voice: Ewan McGregor) has invented a helicopter robot that makes his dad's job as a dishwasher in a diner much easier: it flies around the kitchen and stacks the crockery and cutlery. And that's only one of Rod's bright ideas.

To get his big break, Rodney takes the train to Robot City, seeking to meet Big Weld (voice: Mel Brooks), head of a giant corporation, who plugs his array of products on TV. Rodney meets Fender (voice: Robin Williams), the sort of spiv you'll meet at the railway station in any metropolis. He introduces Rodney to the city via an amazing transport system of ramps, pulleys, catapults and chutes.

Strangely, when the pair get to Big Weld's headquarters, they can't find the big man, and the execs don't want to know about Rodney's inventions. The CEO, Phineas T. Ratchet (voice: Greg Kinnear), explains that perfect products equals no more sales. Bad for the share price; besides, his control-freak mother, Madame Gasket (voice: Jim Broadbent), has a master plan to create a shortage of spare parts, so that robots will have to be replaced, instead of being repaired. Much better for the share price.

Rodney is about the right age to have a girlfriend, and he meets one, Cappy (voice: Halle Berry). She will help him to invade Big Weld and finally stare down the big man.

From Blue Sky, the animation studio that broke through with Ice Age, it's a gorgeous looking film that references some screen classics - Metropolis and The Wizard of Oz spring to mind, neither of which will mean all that much to its target audience.

While it doesn't reach the heights of recent animated greats for children - the original Shrek, Toy Story, Finding Nemo - it will be a hit with younger members of the family, and not a few grandparents, too.

The disk has a whack of extras, as you'd expect from an animation studio. It opens with a new adventure featuring Ice Age's Scrat. On their commentary, director Chris Wedge and producer William Joyce discuss how they wanted to give their robots a heart and soul.

Other features include Meet the Bots interactive profiles, a host of games, several deleted scenes, a couple more short adventures, Aunt Fanny's Tour of Booty and You Can Shine Whatever You're Made Of, promos for the Xbox game, and a look at Ice Age 2, due in cinemas after Christmas.

* DVD, Video rental September 14