Robot and Frank
Metascore
67 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 33 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 24 out of 33
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 33
  3. Negative: 1 out of 33
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  1. Arizona Republic
    Reviewed by: Bill Goodykoontz
    Aug 30, 2012
    80
    This is director Jake Schreier's first feature, and, working from a script by Christopher D. Ford, he creates an inviting world.
  2. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Kimberley Jones
    Aug 29, 2012
    78
    What a weird, winning little movie is Robot & Frank, which explores what happens to the essential self as the memory goes. Oh, and it's a heist picture. With robot butlers. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite like it.
  3. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Mark Feeney
    Aug 23, 2012
    50
    Robot & Frank isn't sure whether it's a comedy or drama, buddy movie or sci-fi fantasy, family melodrama or social satire.
  4. Boxoffice Magazine
    Reviewed by: Ray Greene
    Aug 11, 2012
    60
    The film is light-fingered and charming.
  5. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    Aug 22, 2012
    63
    This is a framework that could have benefitted from more irony and complexity, especially with the resources of Langella, but at the end, I felt the movie was too easily satisfied.
  6. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    Aug 24, 2012
    75
    Langella's performance turns what might have been a "Twilight Zone"-style trifle into something more: a movie about a proud, ornery man combating his fearfulness.
  7. Empire
    Reviewed by: Damon Wise
    Mar 4, 2013
    80
    Forget the sci-fi trimmings and sentimental pay-off — this is a gleefully subversive character study of a charming but unapologetic rogue.
  8. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    Aug 22, 2012
    83
    Robot & Frank is sentimental high-concept fluff that works.
  9. indieWIRE
    Reviewed by: Eric Kohn
    Aug 14, 2012
    83
    Robot and Frank succeeds where "Ted" fails because, unlike McFarlane, Schreier and Ford render the relationship between the human character and the robot in largely credible terms.
  10. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    Aug 23, 2012
    80
    Everything about Robot & Frank is as unlikely as it is irresistible. Charming, playful and sly, it makes us believe that a serene automaton and a snappish human being can be best friends forever.
  11. New Orleans Times-Picayune
    Reviewed by: Mike Scott
    Nov 9, 2012
    60
    An enjoyable diversion, a lightweight bit of philosophizing that blends humor with the bittersweet. It won't likely stick in your memory for too terribly long.
  12. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Joe Neumaier
    Aug 16, 2012
    60
    No one conveys late-life elegy and cool intellectual cunning like Langella.
  13. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    Aug 14, 2012
    70
    Robot & Frank, like its protagonist, is charming enough to get by with the sleight-of-hand. Its irresponsibility redeems it - it's a raspberry blown against the dying of the light.
  14. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    Aug 17, 2012
    75
    The feature directorial debut of Jake Schreier, has a smart script by C.D. Ford and an impressive supporting cast.
  15. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    Aug 23, 2012
    75
    It's an Alzheimer's allegory, full of humanity, heart, and humor.
  16. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    Aug 30, 2012
    83
    There's a terrific balance between human comedy and just-this-side-of-science-fiction in Robot & Frank.
  17. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    Aug 16, 2012
    75
    It also addresses questions of aging and neglect that Hollywood likes to run from. Langella, who's played everyone from Dracula to Nixon onscreen, is giving a master class in acting. Enroll now.
  18. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    Aug 16, 2012
    80
    Robot & Frank is such a sly, dry, modest-seeming picture – part science fiction, part social satire, part geriatric comedy – that you don't realize how well it works until it's over.
  19. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    Aug 23, 2012
    100
    A hard, funny and realistic movie about the future.
  20. Slant Magazine
    Reviewed by: Chris Cabin
    Aug 14, 2012
    25
    Christopher D. Ford's film is nothing more than a Lifetime movie dolled up in cheap Philip K. Dick drag.
  21. Slate
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    Aug 18, 2012
    70
    At heart, Frank & Robot is, true to its title, a buddy movie about the complicated relationship between a thief and his mechanized sidekick (a sleek, white, helmeted creature voiced with unsettling politeness by Peter Sarsgaard). But it's also a rueful and funny reflection on aging, death, parenthood, and technology.
  22. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    Reviewed by: Joe Williams
    Aug 30, 2012
    63
    Ultimately a movie that could have been a little jewel is unpolished.
  23. Tampa Bay Times
    Reviewed by: Steve Persall
    Aug 28, 2012
    91
    Robot & Frank occasionally strains for emotion and stretches credulity, even for such fantasy circumstances. But it has two hearts - one human, one not - in the right place, and intelligence that is anything but artificial.
  24. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Noel Murray
    Aug 11, 2012
    75
    Schreier elicits warm performances from Langella and Susan Sarandon, and even from his robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard).
  25. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Liam Lacey
    Aug 23, 2012
    63
    Very charming but very slight.
  26. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: John DeFore
    Aug 11, 2012
    70
    Robot & Frank reminds quirk-hardened veterans that an odd premise and big heart don't have to add up to too-precious awards bait.
  27. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    Aug 16, 2012
    60
    Frank Langella plays so many variations on cute and crotchety and with such suppleness - he's by turns a charming codger, a silver fox and a wise graybeard - that his performance comes close to a saving grace.
  28. The Playlist
    Reviewed by: Cory Everett
    Aug 16, 2012
    50
    While the premise certainly makes it stand out from the sea of dysfunctional family dramas, a cute idea alone doesn't quite cut it. In the end it's just not funny enough to be completely entertaining and the sentiment feels tacked on.
  29. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    Aug 16, 2012
    70
    What I'm saying is that I resisted the film but it won me over, a little more than I care to admit.
  30. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: David Fear
    Aug 14, 2012
    40
    The pleasure of watching the star sling barbs at Sarsgaard's sandpaper-dry android, shyly court sexy librarian Susan Sarandon and rage against geriatric befuddlement doesn't offset what's essentially a mediocre character study dipped in sci-fi conventions and Social Security–age sentimentality.
  31. Total Film
    Reviewed by: Kevin Harley
    Feb 16, 2013
    80
    Playful, patient and finally poignant, Schreier’s deceptively placid odd-couple winner runs the risk of looking minor. But it carefully exceeds expectation, helped in no small measure by Langella’s wily, wistful lead.
  32. Variety
    Reviewed by: John Anderson
    Aug 11, 2012
    70
    Debuting helmer Jake Schreier, screenwriter Christopher D. Ford and a wry and wily Frank Langella all shine in a smart, plausible and resonant film.
  33. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    Aug 23, 2012
    40
    The concept is schematic and predictable, and watching first-rate actors - the cast includes Susan Sarandon as a local librarian - doing third-rate material is a dubious pleasure.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
7.4 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 37 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 14
  3. Negative: 2 out of 14
  1. TVJerry
    7
    Frank Langella plays a retired cat burglar who's starting to lose his memory. His concerned son buys him a service robot (this is the near future), which is greeted with disdain… Full Review »
  2. BrianMcCritic
    8
    Robot and Frank has a lot of great comedic scenes between Frank and the robot and despite the lack of emotional connection, I would recommend seeing this film for those scenes.… Full Review »
  3. hoops2448
    6
    All the trailers for Robot and Frank displayed the film as a picture about a retired burglar and his return to stealing thanks to the help of his new robot. However the most important part they missed out is the fact that this is a film that is mostly about senility and the things we lose as we get old and in Frank's case its his memories. The film follows Frank (Frank Langella) as he struggles to live alone and take care of himself. To help his son (James Marsden) buys him a helper robot who he decides to re purpose into helping him resume his early career in burglary as a way of proving to himself and those around him he isn't past his prime. In a film that tries so hard to know where it is going its odd to know that much like with Frank, the 3rd act is a blur of incoherent thoughts and ideas that collapse in on themselves due to poor plotting. The film attempts to portray Frank as endearing yet grouchy really just makes him a bit unlikable but Langella manages to inject some of his charm to offset the problem. Liv Tyler while better in this than in most of her work still doesn't quite belong with her character feeling more like a plot point, more like one side of an argument than a real live person. What saves the film from being a mess of good ideas and bad execution is the wonderful relationships such as Frank's interaction with his robot, but most of all in his interaction with his son because that is where most of the films emotion an power comes from and Marsden is more than up to the challenge. Susan Sarandon makes a good foil for Frank but ultimately this is a film about a man losing everything about himself and struggling to come to terms with it while fighting for what little time he has left so it isn't really a film about meeting someone new and settling down, its a film about holding onto the idea of meeting someone new, the idea that Frank's life is still his own and not being consumed by a brain that doesn't work the way it should and because of this it is a heartbreaking emotional picture well worth watching despite its disappointing ending.… Full Review »
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