Walt Disney Pictures’ newest act of computer-animated wizardry is at once a throwback and a rule-breaker, a sentimental homage and a flash to the future.

Meet the Robinsons also is one of the smartest and oddest films to ever come from the studio — that its loopy plot might sometimes be all over the place is beside the point. It’s an all-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to animated moviemaking that the genre has needed, especially after last year’s Cars sputtered its way through two lackluster hours.

To attempt a plot summary, Robinsons begins on a stormy night at the doorstep of an orphanage, a mother dropping off her newborn boy and then scurrying away. Fast-forward a decade or so and the orphan, Lewis, is a budding inventor who keeps his poor roommate up all night and scares away potential foster parents when those inventions go horribly awry.

Lewis finally gets his big break when he competes in a local science fair with a machine that can picture specific moments from someone’s past on a television screen, his big inspiration being his desire to see his birth mother’s face.

But in a series of clever little twists and turns, Lewis finds his invention snatched away while he is plopped down decades in the future under the care of the Robinsons, a futuristic family that makes the eccentric Bluths of television’s Arrested Development look tame. Snapping at his heels is the mysterious Bowler Hat Guy intent on destroying him.

What follows is a reworking of the age-old time-travel quandary: What happens to the future if you change the past? But the movie’s team of writers injects it with an exuberance that renders it fresh at every turn.

The movie’s witty comedic touches are disparate and numerous, featuring jazz-singing frogs, a brief homage to badly dubbed Asian cinema, Tom Selleck sight gags, a unicorn Trapper Keeper and a very polite Tyrannosaurus Rex. That Robinsons’ creators get it to work in their vibrant futuristic world is a testament to their G-rated ingenuity.

At the heart of this barrage of imagery and invention, however, lies a tender conclusion and an immensely clever twist that might sail over the heads of younger viewers but will strike others as profoundly moving, much in the way Finding Nemo did four years ago.

For as much as Meet the Robinsons is a great leap forward for the art of animation with its renowned three-dimensional visuals, it’s also a story about a kid who wants to be loved by a family and the future that awaits him.

That essential Disney theme has been around since Bambi, and it won’t be getting old any time soon.