Wall-E

Wall-E (2008)

Directed by: Andrew Stanton

Starring: Ben Burtt and Elissa Knight

Other Actors of Note: Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, Sigourney Weaver, Kathy Najimy, John Ratzinberger

Plot: What if mankind had to leave Earth, and somebody forgot to turn the last robot off? After hundreds of lonely years of doing what he was built for, WALL*E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) discovers a new purpose in life (besides collecting knick-knacks) when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE. EVE comes to realize that WALL*E has inadvertently stumbled upon the key to the planet's future, and races back to space to report her findings to the humans (who have been eagerly awaiting word that it is safe to return home). Meanwhile, WALL*E chases EVE across the galaxy and sets an adventure into motion. Joining WALL*E on his journey across the universe is a cast of characters including a pet cockroach and a heroic team of malfunctioning misfit robots. Taken from www.imdb.com.

"My name is Wall-E Neville. I am a survivor living in New York City. I am broadcasting on all AM frequencies. I will be at the South Street Seaport everyday at mid-day, when the sun is highest in the sky."

Pixar has over a great period of time managed to impress me more and more as the studio has developed. While movies like "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2", "Finding Nemo", "A Bugs Life", "Cars", and "Monsters Inc." have struck me as "good" movies, films like "Ratatouile" and "The Incredibles" have shown me how amazing that animated films can truly be.

"Wall-E" is no acception to this rule and quite possibly the best film Pixar studios has made thus far. It tells the tale of a robot who was left on Earth to clean up the planet while all the humans left on a giant intergalactic 5 year cruise 700 years ago. Wall-E is the last of his kind, several dead units are seen in early scenes of the film including one which he gets spare parts from.

Wall-E has apparently developed emotions over the years through collecting knick-knacks, watching old musicals, and befriending a cockroach. His life quickly changes when EVE, a search bot sent to Earth to find supportable life, lands one day.

Wall-E quickly falls in love and when Eve heads back to the ship with a plant that Wall-E presented to her in tow, he hangs onto her ship and follows her.

It's good to see Rodney from "Joe's Apartment" is still getting work.

There's very little that can be said about the acting in this movie. Both Wall-E and EVE are vocal but hard to understand and much of their chemistry is through physical actions rather than dialogue. So in this case the acting cred goes to the animators who gave two glorified appliances who can convey emotions through body language and their eyes only very emotional parts.

An odd choice this time is in past documentation the humans are represented by living actors with the President of BnL (effectively the president of the world) played by Fred Willard, this only serves to become confusing when Wall-E meets his first humans and they are all computer generated. This is attempted to be explained by the fact that all human beings have now become fat lazy slobs that do basically nothing on their own, they don't even walk, but even that leaves much to be questioned. This was the one thing I did not like about the movie, if they wished to use real actors they should have kept it consistent rather than changing it halfway through.

Wall-E acts out his romantic ideals while EVE is offline. Subtext, I'm sayin'

The animation as always is nothing short of beautiful, but this time especially Pixar have outdone anything which they have ever done previously, including last year's "Ratatouile." At times it seems very much like what is being played on-screen could be real.

Wall-E seems to unconsciously or consciously draw on several influences. The character himself is like a mixture between R2-D2 and Johnny 5 from the movie "Short Circuit" both in looks and in actions. The scenes on Earth are reminiscent of "I Am Legend" though this is undoubtedly unintentional as the idea for Wall-E came up years before the script for the Will Smith adaptation of Richard Matheson's novel became greenlit.

Scenes aboard the intergalactic cruise ship are without a doubt in reference to Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" with the ship's autopilot Otto bearing more than a passing resemblance to HAL 9000 and even "2001's" theme "Also Sprach Zarathustra" played during a climactic scene involving the captain attempting to stop the autopilot.

Proof that even robots can't figure those things out.

Possibly the most well done part of Wall-E is the satire. It is for all intensive purposes a post apocalyptic movie wherein the human race, now owned by a gigantic company known as Big n Large has effectively taken control of the entire world and through its wastefulness and consumerism has made Earth uninhabited.

So a group of robots known as "Wall-E's" are left to clean up the Earth while humanity remains in space, but apparently the Wall-E's malfunction or just get too old leaving only one left alive. When we see the ship later, Humanity has degenerated to fat lazy slobs whose connection to the world is through media, all meals are drank from large cups in liquid form, they never leave their hover chairs and a conversation between two people via video screen when they are both literally right next to one another hammers the point home.

There are also other nods such as a sign on the moon reading "Big n Large Outlet Mall, coming soon!" and Kathy Najimy's character after having her video screen inadvertently deactivated by Wall-E looking over the commons area of the ship she was born on and going "I didn't know we had a pool."

"Number Five... alive!"

Wall-E is a beautifully animated, written, and just made film. I have hopes that this may just be the film that finally breaks the barrier and gets nominated for a Best Picture Oscar instead of just Best Animated Picture.

I give Wall-E a definite 5 out of 5, SEE THIS NOW!