This animated CG film from Disney has quite the unfortunate title and I suspect it has a lot to do with the film not grossing more than $100 million, which by any standard of animated film box-office, should be considered a colossal failure.

Wouldn’t this be a good title to a sequel for “The Graduate”? I figured that’s exactly what this was and animating it didn’t seem all that weird given today’s audiences. Then, the orphaned, kiddy protagonist inventor, Lewis, comes on the screen and I grew exceedingly restless. I mean, if Lewis was truly going to meet the Robinsons, what did that entail? To make matters worse, Lewis goes to his science fair and one of the judges is on multiple Nicotine patches. If you’ll remember, Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) was a pretty heavy smoker. When this woman turns out to be Lewis’s adopted mother well, I was pretty grossed out. What kind of incestuous shit was Disney trying to pull here.

Well, I’m kind of glad to say that “Meet the Robinsons” turns out NOT to have anything to do with “The Graduates” though you really have to hand it to the geniuses who came up with this whole idea for picking Robinson as the family name to go with. What’s wrong with Smith or Jones or McDonald or something other than Robinson?

The lack of creativity in name choices is reflected in the story as well. Lewis, after belaboring his orphan status and his lack of accomplishment with his invention, befriends a new kid named Wilbur and is quickly whisked off to the future where any semi-conscious audience member down to about three-years-old will figure out in about ten seconds that there’s a connection between Wilbur, Lewis, and the Robinson clan. Not to give anything away, since it’s obvious, but Lewis is Wilbur’s father. In the future, Lewis is a mega-successful inventor. Wilbur has come back in time to get Lewis to fix a time machine and to prevent the boller hat man from stealing one of Lewis’s early inventions lest it change the future.

Unfortunately, I’m again forced to return to “The Graduate” for some disturbing analysis. Being an orphan, Lewis longs for a family. He ends up referring to Wilbur’s mother as mom before learning that mom is actually his wife in the future. I don’t know, can we get any more Oedipal than that?

Animated children’s film or horrible Freudian foul up? You make the call.