You don’t realise how good Pixar are until you see other animated films. Not that Robinson Crusoe is bad or anything like it – it’s certainly better than Pixar’s Cars 2 – but there’s definitely something amiss here. It took me a while to figure it out.
It’s love. Unconditional love is always at the beating heart of a Pixar film: Woody’s love for Andy, Carl’s love for his wife, Sully’s love for Boo, Wall-E’s love for Eve, Joy’s love for Riley, The Incredibles’ love for each other, and Marlin’s love for Nemo all drive the story. Maybe that’s what makes the Cars franchise a damp squib – what does Lightning McQueen love? Racing? Meh.
Robinson Crusoe and the animals here don’t experience that deep love for each other and so, while entertaining and boasting some nifty animation, isn’t one that will stick in the memory. Known in some territories as The Wild Life, which goes someway to explaining why Robinson Crusoe has a smaller part to play than the animals around him, this retelling of Daniel Defoe’s classic tale is seen through the eyes of a parrot, Tuesday (Howard).
Tuesday longs to get off the island, bored doing the same things day in/day out with his friends: a goat, a chameleon (Colin Metzger), a kingfisher (Lindsay Torrance), a tapir (Bazrins) and an echidna (Fox). They don’t believe in his theory of life beyond the island until a shipwreck adorns the beach one morning. On board is Robinson Crusoe (Lowenthal) and his dog and, after some tense moments, the animals befriend this alien. However, Crusoe brings with him the ship’s mangy evil cats (Debi Tinsley and Jeff Doucette), who plan to wreak havoc on the peaceful island.
It takes a while to get going and then it’s over before you know it. That’s down to the elongated set up (Crusoe exploring the island, the cats hatching their plan) but the second half is one long running battle with those cats, and their new army of offspring, laying siege to Crusoe and the animals’ giant treehouse. It’s a long action sequence but directors Vincent Kesteloot and Ben Stassen belie their small budget to deliver a rip-roaring, exciting battle.