WALL·E (***½)

Directed By: Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, A Bug’s Life)
Seen: July 6th and 27th 2008

*** Out of ****

Pixar has done it yet again, and this time with such a minimal amount of dialogue that you can only marvel at the skill and expertise that goes into creating such visibly superior worlds and emotional characters.

WALL·E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter · Earth Class) is the only robot left on earth that’s still functioning in his original capacity, or for that matter, at all. His only companion is an indestructible cockroach, with still more personality than the humans in this film. Together they walk around the ruins of earth left by humans centuries ago, WALL·E simply going on and on and on with his intended job, cleanup. He builds buildings with the blocks of rubbish that he compacts in his “stomach”, and this gives us the opening shot of the film – a standard city skyline, which we see to be both real buildings and rubbish heap buildings as the cameras fly closer.

We find WALL·E busy working, but also collecting various items – and storing them at his “depot” where he also spends time at night watching old movies, and realizing that he is, in fact, alone. WALL·E sees a red spot on the ground, and chases it, realizing too late that it is the guidance systems for a large spaceship to land on earth. Hiding behind a rock, WALL·E sees the ship depositing a robot, who promptly starts scanning the environment. WALL·E falls instantly in love with this robot, EVE (short for Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), and follows “her” around everywhere – until he gives a plant he picked up, and she shuts down, and the space ship comes back to pick her up. WALL·E then naturally stows himself away on this ship.

Previous Pixar films were extremely colorful, and where Pixar goes even further is in creating a post-apocalyptic version of earth that is not at all colorful, but a bleak and barren place. Later in the film we do experience some of the old school Pixar color, when the film moves to the space ship to where the human race relocated. And this one is a bit of a warning/commentary on where we might be headed. All the humans have lost all their so-called humanity. They have stopped exercising completely, and they are all massively overweight, which isn’t a problem anymore, because they’re all on hover chairs, with screens in front of their faces, video phones and TV’s. Are we seriously headed this way? Will robots at one stage overtake us in the humanity race?

Once again the characters in a Pixar film are extraordinarily lovable, even though in this case they are mere robots. Even though there are prolonged sequences without dialogue, WALL·E stays extremely entertaining and heartwarming throughout. This is definitely a film for everyone, with an unobtrusive message also worked into the deal…