Although Robots is set in a pseudo-futuristic universe populated entirely by sentient, autonomous robots, it still feels as though it is rather pointedly about the story of 20th-century America. The first act of the film is tinged with an unmistakable nostalgia for 1950s small-town America. Herb Copperbottom is a literal "dishwasher," in a '50s-style diner --albeit one made robot-friendly by replacing coffee with grease, for example -- and the father of Rodney, a wide-eyed young bot who dreams of becoming an inventor. Rodney's favorite television show is about the famed inventor Bigweld, whose sage advice, "you can shine no matter what you're made of," inspires young Rodney, who, because of his family's economic position, is indeed made up of hand-me-down spare parts.

This fact causes trouble for Rodney when, as a young adult, he travels to Robot City to become an inventor. Instead, he becomes something of a pariah, since bots with "outmoded" parts like his are being burned for scrap metal by the Gaskets, a family of corporate demagogues that have replaced Bigweld as the new captains of industry. Whereas Bigweld cared about the little robots, his successors only care about profit, which is generated by the selling of cheaply produced, glossy "upgrades" to a populace that mostly can't afford them.

It doesn't take a hermeneutics expert to realize what's underneath the polarity the filmmakers have outlined here. Robots belongs to a new wave of thinly veiled left-wing family films that includes last year's Ella Enchanted and January's In Good Company. Like those films, Robots is bright, funny and optimistic about the liberal plight in a way that's probably pleasant for kids, but cold comfort for adults who will leave the corporate-owned theater just as uncertain how to cope with the problems of the real world as when they came.

-- Reviewed by Nicholas Norcia