His short film has very good effects and ideas but what it has more than these are good intentions. These good intentions are to use the effects to produce a film that the viewer cares about and is drawn into so that it is only afterwards that one reflects on how the effects worked. The idea is that a young boy needs this robot for some sort of medical treatment but, while the robot is essential for him, at the same time he also hates the robot as it is essentially the thing that physically represents his illness. On this level I really liked the film because the idea is good and the design of the robot is not only good, but actually functions in service of this idea.
Problem is that the delivery is flawed. I hated to do this but for me the problem was the child actor – and really the only person we see on the screen it was important he be very good and unfortunately he is very wooden and unnatural. He always felt like a child overacting as if he had been told to pretend something (which I guess in this instance he had). The clunkiness of his performance hurt the whole film. Additionally some of the plot devices don't flow as well as they should have and I would have liked the film to have a bit more lightness in the touch but also more smartness in terms of events – I didn't feel the majority of the film really did enough to support and expand the idea, and this is a weakness.
As I said, the robot itself is very nicely done and the idea is a clever and potentially moving one, it is just that the delivery from the film as a whole but from the child actor specifically seemed to detract much more than it added. It is still worth a look for sure, but it deserved to be better than it is.
Problem is that the delivery is flawed. I hated to do this but for me the problem was the child actor – and really the only person we see on the screen it was important he be very good and unfortunately he is very wooden and unnatural. He always felt like a child overacting as if he had been told to pretend something (which I guess in this instance he had). The clunkiness of his performance hurt the whole film. Additionally some of the plot devices don't flow as well as they should have and I would have liked the film to have a bit more lightness in the touch but also more smartness in terms of events – I didn't feel the majority of the film really did enough to support and expand the idea, and this is a weakness.
As I said, the robot itself is very nicely done and the idea is a clever and potentially moving one, it is just that the delivery from the film as a whole but from the child actor specifically seemed to detract much more than it added. It is still worth a look for sure, but it deserved to be better than it is.
