DIRECTORS Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha have taken one giant leap for computer-generated kind, travelling from the Ice Age to the age of Robots quicker than you can click a finger.

There is no explanation why the world is inhabited solely by robots and none is required: in the tradition of animation the robots are anthropomorphic ciphers for the foibles, hopes and fears of modern man. What you have here is Antz in rusting and shiny metallic form.

Teaming up with the Parenthood and City Slickers screenwriting duo of Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, Wedge and Saldanha envision a retro-looking future where robot babies are delivered in assembly kit form with baffling parts. "Ah, 12 hours' hard labour, but it was worth it," says Mrs Copperbottom, upon the arrival of new son Rodney (Ewan McGregor on heroic vocals).

Like his dad, a creaking dishwasher with too many washes on the clock, young Rodney is made up of enamelled parts last seen in Fanny Cradock's kitchen, but Rodney is an idealistic robot and a James Dyson in the making. He wants to create a unified, happier robot world through time-saving electronic inventions, and to do so he needs to patent his crackpot/cracking design: a souped-up but shy coffee jug with swish, multiple powers.

In this coming-of-age fairytale, Rodney must head into the big metropolis of Robot City, only to discover that his potential angel, the kindly, corpulent corporate design ace Big Weld (Mel Brooks), has been usurped by a megalomaniac uber-robot (Greg Kinnear).

The yuppie megalomaniac, as smooth of manner as body parts, is operating a scam that will wipe out all robots unable to meet his inflated prices for body upgrades. Rodney and his allies, the revolutionary Rusties (such as Robin Williams's typically over-excitable Fender), must fight for the old ways.

On one level, Robots is a comic children's fable, superbly animated with plenty of visual flair and the speed of a Schumacher. On the other, in a setting that crosses Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Rollerball, it seeks to be an Orwellian cautionary satire on corporate greed, the march of capitalism, the obsession with new over old, and the removal of rights. However, the one-liners are too heavy handed, and Robots falls short of the anarchic pleasures of Shrek and the Toy Story franchises.

Updated: 16:19 Thursday, March 17, 2005