Pinoy artist’s work in ‘Meet the Robinsons’ is a scream

By Dexter R. Matilla Inquirer MANILA, Philippines--Disney's new animated movie "Meet the Robinsons" is big in every way. Big cast, big-name voices, and big ideas all throughout. But perhaps none is bigger than the biggest character in the movie, Tiny, the Robinsons’ T-Rex pet. The obviously hard-to-miss Tiny steals the scene in one sequence, eliciting laughter once he speaks. The voice belongs to Filipino-American Joe Mateo. A Fine Arts Advertising graduate from the University of Santo Tomas, Mateo also co-wrote the script and did storyboard work for the movie, which is based on the book "A Day with Wilbur Robinson" by William Joyce. Already based in LA, Mateo said it was his wife, a former classmate in UST who was already working for Disney’s Art Classics Department, who informed him of a job opening at the studio. "It was an opportunity," Mateo said. He has since done artwork for such beloved Disney movies as "Pocahontas," "Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "Home on the Range." In the same way that Mateo's creativity landed him a dream job in Disney, Lewis (Jordan Fry), the main character of "Meet the Robinsons," gets the story going for this hilarious animated movie with his inventiveness and creativity. Left by his mother in an orphanage when he was still a baby, Lewis grows up to be a very smart kid and an inventor to boot. Not knowing why his mother gave him up, however, Lewis has a hollow feeling. Wanting to be reunited with her, he invents a "memory scanner" from a couple of household items put together. With Lewis’ plan seemingly foolproof, in comes the Bowler Hat Guy who steals the memory scanner. Voiced by "Meet the Robinsons" director Steve Anderson, this Bowler Hat Guy is from the future and possibly the worst villain there is. Back to the future An upset Lewis returns to the orphanage, where a teenage boy about his age appears out of nowhere. Introducing himself as Wilbur Robinson (Wesley Singerman), he takes the young inventor on a ride in a space ship/time machine and brings him 30 years into the future where Lewis meets the Robinsons. There have been other animated movies about boy geniuses before, but "Meet the Robinsons" offers something different. Smart and engagingly witty with unexpected twists and turns, it peeks into what could or couldn't have been from decisions made today. And while failures cannot be avoided, it imparts what can be learned from them. For his part, Joe Mateo advises anyone who wishes to succeed in life to just "give everything you can." Other big-name voices in the movie include Tom Selleck, Angela Bassett, Adam West and Laurie Metcalf.