Next Gen

Recently added to the Netflix catalogue, this chinese - canadian movie is an adventure in a world of sentient robots.

Lovely drawn and animated, we sat down and gave it a go

Plot (from Wikipedia)

In the futuristic city of Grainland, a girl named Mai Su is living an ideal life with her parents, until an argument between them ends with her father leaving the family. Over the next several years, her mother Molly copes with the separation by buying several highly advanced robots called Q-Bots, unintentionally leaving Mai feeling neglected and alone. 
Years later, Mai is now a adolescent teenager and Molly is almost completely oblivious to how her daughter feels. She and Molly head out to the launch event for the Gen 6 Q-Bots. After being cornered by security Q-Bots, she decides to escape to a nearby chute for the smaller robots, entering in Dr. Tanner Rice's secret lab where he has developed a robot of his own: Project 7723.

7723 eventually escapes the building to locate Mai and return her backpack to her.
Back in school, Mai is playing soccer by herself until she hits another girl named Ani, who happens to be sitting nearby. They are then confronted by Greenwood, a bully who insults Mai about her dead father. Upset, Mai kicks her soccer ball right into Greenwood's face. Greenwood then orders her and her friends Q-Bots to attack her. 
7723 then arrives at Mai's house, he returns the backpack, but Mai is still irritated with him. After being attacked by her robotic toothbrush, 7723 fires a laser at the toothbrush. Fascinated by 7723's hidden weaponry, Mai allows 7723 to stay in her garage.
After another day of mischief, Mai and 7723 return home in which 7723's program reveals that he only has 18 hours of memory storage left.

7723 finds out that Mai has run away from home. He eventually finds her by a hill and has made a colorful light that creates a picture of Mai's family to project on the night sky. When Mai reminisces over the happy life she had before her father left her home, the two forgive each other and continue to watch.
Mai successfully reconciles with her mother, and Ares unknowingly confesses everything on camera with a whole stadium of people watching.

Sometime later, Mai is shown to be hanging out with Greenwood, Ani, and her friends, along with 7723. The movie ends with all of them creating new memories and playing soccer together while 7723 begins to remember some of his old ones, including the fact that he and Mai would always look out for each other.

What I Liked about it

* the growing friendship between the robot and Mai, and how they affect each other
* the animation level

What I didn't like about it

* 7723 gives off a serious 'hey, we liked Baymax' vibe

A nice movie to have a look at on Netflix, for a calm evening at home.