How does a movie made in Spain capture the feeling of 80s New York City so well that I become nostalgic for a place I’ve never lived in, let alone in that decade? Well It’s based on a comic book of the same name from someone who did, but even then I find that difficult to adapt. Some how this animated movie does all that and provide us with one of the most hearfelt animated movies ever made. All of this without any dialog. All these feats are quite impressive on their own but to be able to do all of this makes this one of my favorite animated film experiences I’ve ever had.
Mi Amigo Robot
This movie has no dialogue and it is not needed. I’m glad they took the risk as other movies like The Land Before Time and Dinosaurs were also supposed to lack dialogue and made a worse movie by adding it. This definitely limited the audience that this could reach but I’m glad sometimes artistic vision could overcome a business decisions. This is the best part about independent films that is refreshing over the Hollywood slop that is released every year.
New York feels like New York in the 80s. I never lived there but movies from that era give a more caricature look of what life is like, while this gives us a more grounded look. Inspite of the characters literally being a robot and a dog. But based on my experience of life in the 90s, this seems exactly what 80s NY was like.
The animation is excellent. It’s amazing to see such smooth animation with love when high budget cartoon movies and shows give us the laziest digital animation ever, this shows us that more can be done even with a smaller budget. I’ve been so tired of modern animation but this movie gives me hope that we can have great animated projects still in this day and age that don’t feel soulless.
I think the movie could be shorter, it does go for a bit too long. It works as a one time watch but I think it could’ve been a far more solid shorter movie. The movie is about a dog and a robot, their love. It’s a sad movie and I absolutely hate the ending. The comic hits different feels and the movie is superiro in many ways, although the comic has its strengths.
The comic makes it easier to see the passage of the months and in a way portrays things a bit better. I was able to find a sequel fanfic comic around failing to understand the whole point of the movie and comic was to show things without any dialog. I can’t say it’s the greatest animated movie, but it’s so refreshing. This movie should’ve been promoted far more and reached a much larger audience. Go watch this movie, you’ll be happy you did.