The cartoon studio responsible for 'Shrek' and 'How to Train Your Dragon' is in dire need of new intellectual property, and this children's book adaptation delivers that, along with a radical new visual approach to CG animation.

A gorgeous computer-generated cartoon with a human heart beating beneath its sleek, ultra-modern surface, DreamWorks Animation’s “The Wild Robot” arrives at a time when audiences seem more concerned than ever about being outdone by artificial intelligence. It’s somewhat ironic, then, that the film, a sweet fable about a chosen family based on the first book in Peter Brown’s open-ended series, features no human characters of note.

Instead, “The Wild Robot” centers on an overzealous automaton named ROZZUM 7134 (or “Roz,” for short), whose personality comes in part from Lupita Nyong’o and the rest of the artists at DWA. Along with “How to Train Your Dragon” co-director Chris Sanders, they give this bot — essentially two spheres, four limbs and more tools than a Swiss Army knife — maternal instincts and something that might pass for a soul.

In the world of the film, however, the emotional independence that makes Roz unique will be seen as a burden by Universal Dynamics, the company that designed “her” to help paying customers with whatever task they wanted. Roz is designed to please people, at its core. So what does she do when she crashes on a desert island with no one to serve?