Meet the Robinsons

Review in a Hurry:  Orphaned boy genius runs afoul of time-traveling villainy in this computer-animated flick that's just a few pixels shy of Pixar quality.

The Bigger Picture:  Young Lewis has a knack for MacGyvering gadgets that unfortunately doesn't endear him to prospective parents. It does, however, earn him the attentions of a Snidely Whiplash-style villain, an evil man with a bowler hat (or is it a man with an evil bowler hat?) who's come back from the future to ensure that Lewis' inventing career never gets off the ground.

Like most time-travel yarns, this one falls apart if you think too hard about it. Fortunately, Meet the Robinsons maintains such a goofy, breakneck pace that even nuclear-physicist parents won't have a whole lot of time to think.

Before you know it, Lewis is off on an adventure in a technofetishists' dream future, being welcomed into a surreal surrogate family and entering a titanic battle of wits with a man who talks to his hat.

All of this plays out in smartly lit, sharp-looking animation (in non-headache-inducing 3D, in some theaters!), with memorable, well-drawn characters—if perhaps a few too many to be well developed in the bargain.

Though the picture itself is undeniably shiny, that's not the brightest thing about Meet the Robinsons. That honor goes to the unbridled optimism at its core, which—along with its unabashed celebration of all forms of nerdity—makes it an ideal film for both bookwormy kids and tech-savvy parents.

The 180—a Second Opinion:  The plot twists really aren't that twisty; no matter how unexpected the specifics may turn out to be, anyone over 10 is going to know what's coming. And a couple of sequences come off as blatant sops for the inevitable videogame spinoff, wasted effort that could have been better spent on one of the many short-shrifted sidekicks.