WALL-E

June 27, 2008

Rated: G Runtime: 103 min Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

700 years from now, Earth has become a polluted wasteland. Humans have abandoned their homeworld for space, and left one little robot behind to clean everything up. WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) gathers up junk and excretes 2-foot-long compressed cubes, like a mini-car crusher. He then stacks these cubes slowly into skyscrapers. He’s lonely; a cockroach is his only companion. Each night he goes home to his shelter to recharge his batteries, and adds a little more to his collection of human bric-a-brak from items he’s scavenged among the ruins; it’s like a flea market. And he’s fascinated with his videotape of the 1969 musical HELLO, DOLLY! which he watches over and over while he imitates the dances.

Then one day, a spaceship lands and disgorges a new robot, EVE, who seems to be a few centuries more technologically advanced than WALL-E. Out of his league, in other words. But he’s smitten.

This causes him to stow away on her ship when it departs, and eventually he encounters what’s left of the human race in deep space. They’ve been living on a space cruise ship, and pampered by their robotic guardians until they’re overweight couch potatoes.

Pixar/Disney continues to make CGI animated movies far ahead of the competition, because the story is as important as the animation. What’s particularly impressive this time out is that much of the movie is told virtually in pantomime; WALL-E can speak more English than R2D2, but not much. Almost everything is conveyed through body language. That the body is a little robot makes it even more astonishing that what he’s thinking is so clearly conveyed.

And much of the time he’s the only character around, which makes it a bit like Tom Hanks in CASTAWAY, or, more to the point, Will Smith in I AM LEGEND, exploring the ruins of an empty planet.

Also like I AM LEGEND, the movie is perhaps slightly more interesting before he discovers that there are still other people.

The ruined Earth has an amazing tactile gritty feel to it. The space cruise ship is done in a different style; Post-Decadent Jetsons.

A little jarring, among the robots and the couch potato humans (which look like regular Pixar People gone to seed), is actor Fred Willard, shown in ancient video recordings, pretty much as is, seemingly with a minimum of CGI transformation.

Pixar continues to make great films that are almost more for adults than kids (but completely appropriate for kids). This one has a pretty esoteric plotline though. I wonder if the youngest kids parents take to this won’t get a little restless in the theater. Then again, I wondered the same thing about RATATOUILLE, so if your very small kids loved that, they’ll probably love this.

Posted by Mack Guffin | Filed Under 4 Stars, Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Fred Willard, Jeff Garlin, John Ratzenberger, SciFi, Theatrical