WALL-E
Pixar's Latest Delivers, In a Big Way
WALL-E
July 9th, 2008 - I'm a big fan of the Pixar movies. I've seen them all, and though they are all aimed primarily at children, the stories are consistently engaging, the characters are well written, and the stories, while somewhat predictable at their worst, deliver a lesson in an incredibly entertaining way at their best. The formula works, and if it ain't broke, why mess with the formula, right?
Andrew Stanton, the writer/director of WALL-E, very strongly disagreed with that sentiment. To him, the computer animation that Pixar is known for is simply a medium for story telling, and there's no reason why there should be a strict pattern that their movies must follow. And though his decision to follow up Finding Nemo with a movie based largely around a character that can barely speak may have seemed like a marketing nightmare at the outset, the end result is a truly amazing film.
Set in a distant future, WALL-E is a robot who's job it is to clean up humanity's mess after the Homo Sapiens have long since deserted the planet, and the other units left to help in the clean-up effort seem to have broken down. WALL-E continues his routine, compacting garbage and arranging the cubes in neat skyscrapers, all the while listening to his favorite songs and looking out for pieces of trash that he finds special for his personal collection. He works from sun up to sun down, ever vigilant of storms and watchful over his cockroach friend, who he feeds Twinkies to. (Isn't that an old joke, that in the distant future when there's nothing left on earth, there will still be Twinkies and roaches?) Before WALL-E goes to sleep, he watches Hello, Dolly! and dreams of having someone to hold hands with.
One day, a spaceship comes to Earth, dropping off a new robot, who goes around scanning everything in sight and shooting at things that frighten her. Her name is EVE, and though WALL-E is painfully shy, they eventually introduce themselves and WALL-E brings her back to his home when a storm approaches. He hands her an old light bulb, and she makes it light up. He gives her a Rubik's cube, and she solves it. He gives her a small seedling he came across, and she goes dormant. Heartbroken, WALL-E still spends his time with EVE, trying to engage her in various activities.
Throughout all of this, there is next to no dialogue. WALL-E and EVE are able to speak their names and a few other words, but the vast majority of the way that they communicate with each other, to the roach, and to the audience, is done non-verbally. While that might seem like a terribly boring beginning to a movie, I assure you that you'll hardly notice, as everything that you need to know about WALL-E's life is perfectly fleshed out, and you don't end up missing any speeches that would have been overkill had they been included. WALL-E is painfully lonely, and no expositional dialogue could illustrate that better than watching him power down into a cube, put himself on a shelf along with the rest of his things, and then gently rocking himself to sleep. That visual is enough to elicit an "Awww, poor guy," from the most hardened movie viewer.
WALL-E's unrequited love for EVE follows him into space, where they encounter human characters, more substance to the larger story of what’s happened to our species, and yes, plenty of talking, though there is still an unbelievable amount of emotion conveyed without words. EVE learns just how dedicated WALL-E is to her as they are sent to and escape from Maintenance, and EVE returns the favor by saving WALL-E when he is blasted away in an escape pod set to self destruct. even a great deal about the future evolution of humanity is summed up perfectly with the visual of the Axiom’s previous captains. Of course, all of the Pixar movies are beautiful to look at, but WALL-E really allows the amazing imagery to tell a large part of the story, and it just works, plain and simple.
At the end of this movie, I was truly moved. It's hard to imagine a love-story between two inanimate objects packing such an emotional punch, but this movie pulls it off. It's impossible not to root for these characters, and though the movie has a happy ending, it is far from a "Happily Ever After" scenario. There is also a pretty powerful message in the movie, focusing mainly on our culture of laziness and excess, with of course a message of environmentalism mixed in. I'm not sure how children will react to this movie, as it doesn't really have very much in common with, say, Toy Story. The Pixar films have a way of appealing primarily to kids while keeping their parents entertained on another different level, but WALL-E seems, in my opinion, to aim more squarely at the adults, while also hoping to keep the kiddies happy with some sillier moments along the way. In the end though, when you strip WALL-E from the notions that it's a G Rated movie, that it's a Pixar movie, that it's a kid's movie, that it's a Disney movie, what you are left with is quite simply, a great movie.
Alan's Score: 9.8 out of 10
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