It’s time for a largely wholesome film although the ending isn’t the most satisfying. We get to see a whole lot of New York City which can really be the highlight of the film even more than the story. There was a lot of good attention to detail here which allows you to feel nostalgic the whole time as the adventure plays through.

The movie starts by introducing us to a lonely dog who doesn’t really have any friends. This dog does his best to live on as he eats his macaroni and cheese but then one day decides to order himself a friend. He buys and assembles a robot who does end up being a great friend but unfortunately the Dog leaves him on a beach where he is deactivated. The Dog must now make it many months on his own before he can get back onto the beach and fix his friend. Will his friend still be there when the dog comes back though?

The dog is a good example of a main character who needs to find his own internal happiness before he can be truly happy. The guy just doesn’t know how to have a good time on his own and so that’s why he is really relying on the robot the whole time. This is tricky because when you are that reliant on another person then you stop improving yourself. Before finding a friend or even a romantic partner, you need to have a full life that you can keep satisfied on your own. This means having some hobbies and such so when your friend is hanging out with another friend group or just doing something on their own, you’re not just sitting around bored.

Dog does try a few times to find things to do but they never quite work out. He tries going fishing with someone but they don’t seem to connect all that much. At the same time, he did get a post card so maybe they would have been friends for longer. Going on the snow adventure didn’t work out either and so in the end he basically has to be by himself again. I would argue that the dog didn’t really get any character development throughout the movie. In fact, in a sense he didn’t move forward at all so his happiness is still short lived. Hopefully he is more careful this time. The film makes a point of showing how he could have worked harder to get to the robot since everyone else did.

Dog is a nice guy, but perhaps not very reliable. Meanwhile the robot gets the short end of the stick for most of the film but I would argue the happier ending. The robot always did a good job of looking at things positively so he will thrive in any environment. Additionally even his dreams were pretty fun. I disagreed with his final decision though since constantly having to be hiding could get old fast. You always need to face your fears, or in this case just face whatever is in front of you. It’s really the best way to go and just get it over with.

His new owner definitely seems like a good guy so I was glad things worked out for him too. He seems to be trying hard and doing what he can as well. So while the ending wasn’t satisfying for me due to the final choices, at least it didn’t go the crazy option like making it one last dream. The dreams were fun enough but that would have definitely been overdoing it a bit.

As I mentioned before though, the best part of the film is really the NYC backdrop. There are just so many fun elements to the city and the film really captures down all the right details. It’s nice seeing the various parks, the foods, and everything else. You can tell that the creators either got to visit New York City at some point or did an impressive amount of research because it all felt very authentic. It’s why even aside from the story you could watch it just for the backgrounds and little details that appear throughout.

The animation style is pretty nice here. It’s simple but effective. It’s always easy to follow what’s happening in the movie. There is even a pretty decent soundtrack with a number of songs and instrumental themes. They worked well in showing how much fun the city was during the montages. I also liked the way the robot would hum one of the tunes. There isn’t any real dialogue in this film which I do tend to miss but at least the film still managed to be very entertaining the whole time. The characters were able to clearly show what they were doing and thinking even without the dialogue.

Would dialogue have helped the film? Absolutely but at the end of the day when you can make a film that’s still good without any dialogue, then that’s a pretty impressive feat. It’s definitely not something that just anyone can do. I imagine a whole lot of people have probably tried and absolutely failed to pull it off. The stakes are also high because if you fail, the most likely outcome is that the film will be incredibly boring which can really hurt. So make sure you have an air tight premise and fun characters before even thinking of attempting this.

Overall, Robot Dreams is definitely an accurate title for this film with all of the dreams going on. At first it might even trick you if you forgot what the title was. The movie goes by fast and it tells a nice story. I would recommend checking it out. It’s a reminder of how even the most fun activities can seem boring if you haven’t learned how to do them on your own yet. In this case the focus was really on making friends which for Dog seems like a temporary solution while for Robot it seems like he will be good long term. NYC is definitely filled with never ending adventures if you know where to look.

Overall 7/10