When Lewis gets inspired to create a device that will weed through his earliest memories and show him who his mother was, Lewis feels a renewed sense of hope since his 140-something adoption interviews have all ended in failure. He starts to work on his Memory Scanner with the intention of showing it off at the upcoming science fair, but when the machine blows up in his face, he decides he is no good as an inventor and storms off.
What Lewis doesn't know is that the Memory Scanner failed, not because of Lewis' lack of skill, but because it was sabotaged. A tall and twisted looking man dressed all in black with a robotic bowler cap seems to have something against our young blonde, spiky-haired hero, and he has taken Lewis' creation and attempts to pass it off as his own at the local research lab.
Lewis is confronted by young Wilbur Robinson, who keeps trying to convince Lewis to go back and finish his device, but Lewis just believes this person who claims to be from the future is a nut -- that is until Wilbur proves Lewis wrong by taking him through time. In a struggle, the time machine crashes and Wilbur convinces Lewis that he needs to fix it. They drag the machine into the Robinson garage and Lewis ends up, accidentally, meeting the rest of the Robinsons.
The Robinson family is made up of artists and scientists and all of them are strange. It turns out that Wilbur's father, Cornelius (voiced by Tom Selleck), has been deemed the Father of the Future since he is the most successful inventor of all time. Cornelius is out of town, which is good because Wilbur needs the time to have Lewis fix the time machine and try to retrieve the one the Bowler Hat Guy stole. But all plans start to break down when the rest of the Robinsons realize that Lewis is from the past.
I don't want to give away the couple of twists that this movie has. I was able to figure them out in pretty good time, but it was still enjoyable to watch the characters figure things out. The big question is, will Lewis get his confidence back? Will Wilbur take Lewis to see his mother? Who is the Bowler Hat Guy and why does he want to ruin Lewis' future?
There are quite a few Special Features on this disc. Besides the deleted scenes (which, when watched are mixes of fully realized CG work to story boards and various steps in between), there is also a featurette on inventors through the ages and one on creating the Robinson family. There are also a couple of games, my favorite being Family Function 5000 where you are asked questions about the various members of the Robinson family in order to build their complicated family tree.
When it comes to it, Meet the Robinsons is just a fun movie that is great for all ages. The comedy is great and the characters are lovable. I like this movie so much that I've already watched it a couple of times (once on Blu-ray and once on DVD). This movie is greatly recommended, and there is a very noticeable visual quality difference between the high and standard definition versions.
