The charms of “The Wild Robot” sneak up on you.

A futuristic tale, the adaptation of Peter Brown’s kid-lit book summons up memories of the great animated films for children of the past.

It was bit of a hard sell, judging from a year of underwhelming trailers advertising this story of a robot learning virtues that have always been the province of the living — empathy, responsibility and nurturing.

But writer-director Chris Sanders has always had the knack for humanizing hard sells and finding the heart behind the laughs. “Lilo & Stitch,””The Croods” and “How to Train Your Dragon” prove that. Here, he reaches for the emotions of “Bambi” in a movie utterly modern in every other CGI way.

A robot is lost overboard in a shipping container, washing up on an uninhabited island somewhere in the Pacific Northwest of the post-climate-changed future. Rozzum 7134 is meant to be a “helper” for humans. But there are no humans here, only wild animals.

“Learning mode,” she chatters to herself (in the voice of Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o). Mimicking a crabwalk will get you out of the surf before it dashes you to bits.

We experience this world through her camera-eyes (with computer readout graphics), seeing the threats she soon faces from moose, bear and especially racoons, hearing her voice her every AI thought as she does.

All she wants is a “task,” something anyone she meets needs taken care of. It’s only after mastering the language of the critters here that she will learn the otters, deer, opossums and others regard her as a “Monster.”

A gosling has been orphaned on her arrival. Might this be her “task,” raising and “mothering” this baby goose?

“I do not have the programming to be a mother,” Rozzum 7134 complains. “No mother does,” mama possum Pinktail (the great Catherine O’Hara) counsels.

Roz, as she’s soon called, must get this gosling on its feet, able to feed itself, swim and fly before the fall migration. Her main help will be a self-described “expert” on geese — Fink the Fox (Pedro Pascal). He’s skeptical about this whole enterprise.

“Don’t get too attached to the little guy.” The movie may be sentimental. Nature is not.

The hated fox will be her spirit guide through all this, conning her into feeding and housing him, along with the tiny critter he’d love to have eaten as an egg, a gosling or a full grown goose. He even teaches her slapstick.

“Humor is based on…misfortune?”

“Imprinting” on a robot isn’t natural, so little Brightbill, as he’s named, develops a mechanical walk and programmic mode of speech.

It’s a pity he didn’t imprint on the fox. To Find, the chatty, almost suicidally clumsy baby possums are “appetizers.”

The best sight gags are the comic violence the animal kingdom visits upon poor Roz, whose 360 degree rotating hands, head, arms, legs and torso get her out of many a jam.

The comical problem solving — how to teach little Brightbill to eat, swim and fly — is inventive and will involve other critters (Brit funnyman Matt Berry is a beaver, Mark Hamill a bear, Bill Nighy a sage old goose and Ving Rhames a hawk).

And every animated sequence, comical or sweet, passes on the need for compassion, empathy and responsibility.

“A Rozzum always completes its task.”

The humor is largely physical, but witty in sly ways when it comes to dialogue. You want a gosling to sleep? Tell him a story. Who’d be good at that? A fox?

“Storytelling is lying-adjacent,” Pascal-as-Fink reassures us. And so it is.

The ending is over-the-top, violent and a bit out of character with the rest of the movie until you remember “Bambi” is kind of the guiding light here.

But Sanders & Co. have made that rare Dreamworks cartoon that’s more about the message and teaching than about the laughs, a gentle, touching comedy that turns out to be one of the best films this animation house has ever made.

Your responsibility, your “task” is simple — take your children to it. They’re never too young to learn to “always complete your task.”

Rating: PG

Cast: The voices of Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Boone Storm, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Matt Berry, Mark Hamill, Catherine O’Hara and Ving Rhames

Credits: Scripted and directed by Chris Sanders, based on the novel by Peter Brown. A Universal/Dreamworks release.

Running time: 1:41