Meet the Robinsons

Lewis (Daniel Hansen / Jordon Fry) is an orphan at the 6th Street Orphanage. He spends his time inventing odd things. The one invention he really wants to finish is his memory scanner, not only because it is for the science fair but also because he wants to relive his memory of the day his mom gave him up so he can see what she looks like. So much so, in fact, that he keeps his roommate Goob (Matthew Josten)  up all night to finish it. 

At the fair Lewis meets Wilbur Robinson (Wesley Singerman) who claims he is police officer from the future and that Lewis is in danger from a tall skinny many with a bowler hat. Surprisingly Lewis doesn't believe him, but Bowler Hat Guy (Stephen J. Anderson) really is hanging around and sabotages Lewis' project without him knowing. Thinking that he failed again, Lewis goes home sad and is followed by Wilbur. Wilbur is trying to convince him that it wasn't his fault and to rebuild it, but Lewis isn't interested and doesn't believe him that he's from the future. Wilbur decides the only way to show that he is from the future is to take him to the future. Once they are there, however, Lewis realizes that now he doesn't need the memory scanner and he can just go back in in time to stop his mom from giving him up. While trying to do just that, the two boys fight over the controls and they end up crashing the time machine.  Wilbur is freaking out and needs Lewis to fix it before his parents get home.  He sticks Lewis in the garage and goes of to get the blue prints. Lewis wanders off however and meets the very crazy Robinson family. And that was putting it nicely. They are all nuts.

Back in the present, Bowler Hat Guy is trying to pass off Lewis' invention as his own, only he has no idea how anything works. We quickly discover that the real brains behind this operation is Doris the sentient Bowler Hat (Ethan Sandler). Since Bowler Hat Guy can't get the machine to work, their new plan is to find Lewis. He goes to the orphanage but only finds Goob, who apparently fell asleep while playing baseball and  missed the winning catch and got beat up by his teammates. Poor guy. Anyway Bowler Hat Guy finds time travel particles on the roof, well Doris finds the particles, BHG finds a stick and those two things combined means they are now headed back to the future. Well the stick had nothing to do with it, really.

Lewis on the other hand, is very taken with the Robinson family, so much so that they want to adopt him. In a panic Wilbur reveals the Lewis in from the past and they tell him he has to go home. Distraught and betrayed Lewis stumbles into BHG's clutches, and he gets Lewis to fix the memory scanner. And for those of you who haven't already figured it out we learn that BHG is in fact Goob who, because he lost the game, blamed it on Lewis, and harbored vengeful feelings. Over the years while Lewis became more and more successful as Cornelius Robinson (AKA Wilbur's dad), Goob became more and more bitter and eventfully teamed up with Doris, who was one of Lewis' inventions that couldn't be controlled, and together they stole a time machine to stop Lewis from inventing his very first invention so he never would become a world famous inventor. Well that was Goob's plan, Doris' plan is to take over the world and it works too. With Goob now the inventor, he 'invents' Doris the Helping Hat, all of which are controlled by Doris.

Luckily for everyone Lewis was able to fix the time machine that he broke and he goes back in time to fix his memory scanner and wake Goob so he catches the ball and wins the game, therefore stopping BHG from ever existing. Wait if he stops BHG from existing then  BHG will never go back in time, therefore Wilbur will never go back in time and Lewis will never go to the future to know never to invent Doris so it will in fact change nothing so BHG will existing and will go back in time....um never mind.

The important thing is that the movie was really funny and well done. I was dubious because BHG was really incompetent and was in fact a terrible villain, I was so very glad when Doris turned out the be the actual villain. If he had been the main bad guy the movie would have been completely unbelievable. It was a little far fetched with all the zany characters in the Robinson family. I know they were supposed to be a little out there, but people who teach frogs how to sing and who invent meatball launchers are very out there. Very, very out there. If they had been a little bit less crazy I would have like them more, as it were they weren't really characters but more caricatures of actually people. I found that it took away from the movie slightly.

The only other slight problem I had with the movie was how Wilbur's mom waned to adopt Lewis an hour after she met him. Don't you think that was something you should be discussing with Mr. Robinson before you broach the subject with Lewis? What if Cornelius hated Lewis (if, you know, they weren't the same person)? Then you'd be setting the child up for bitter disappointment. I understand that they needed Lewis to trust BHG for a few moments so that he would fix the memory scanner, but still there had to be another way of doing it.

Other than those two things I think this movie was pretty awesome. It was well animated and cute an actually had an excellent message fro children. It doesn't matter how many times you screw up as long as you keep trying. It's a lot better then you have to wait until you get magic powers before you can be a hero.

All in all, it was an excellent movie for the kid in all of us.

Grade: 9/10