Robots (2005)

It’s very much a nuts and bolts world in Robots – the new animated feature from the makers of Ice Age. Shifting their focus from that prehistoric period to a much more futuristic-looking one, they have come up with a sci-fi comedy adventure brimful of enjoyable characters voiced by a top-notch cast.

Robots is the title – plain and simple – and robots (or ‘bots as they are called) are the stars…all kinds of weird and wonderful mechanical marvels. Rodney Copperbottom (voiced by Ewan McGregor) is the hero of the story. He’s an inventor who wants to escape from the small town where he lives and expand his horizons by making the world a better place and helping other robots with his clever inventions. At the moment Rodney works in a restaurant where his dad is a dishwasher – the front-loading kind!

Pursuing his dreams, Rodney embarks on a journey to Robot City where he hopes to meet his hero – a famous inventor called Bigweld (Mel Brooks). But all is not well in Robot City and things aren’t what Rodney has hoped for. Bigweld has been replaced by a devious character called Ratchet (Greg Kinnear) who has evil plans that will affect all robots that don’t come up to his standards. Rodney has to stop him and find his idol, Bigweld.

Along the way he meets a group of characters called Rusties, street-smart ‘bots that include Fender (Robin Williams) and his sister, Piper (Amanda Bynes). There’s also romance in the air for Rodney in the shape of Cappy (Halle Berry) a Bigweld Industries executive who takes an instant liking to him.