I very rarely give ten out of ten to a movie, but I have no hesitation in giving that perfect score to WALL-E. It is sublime. Not just the best animation I've seen in a long time, but simply one of the best movies I've seen in many months in terms of coherent and effective story-telling and seamless editing. It's extremely well put together. The animation is in a class of its own. My only slightly negative comment might be that clearly this isn't a movie aimed at little kids, and perhaps the marketing strategy is showing too much of the 'cute funnies' and not enough of the sheer artistry of Pixar's vision. This is not a bright, sunny view of the world where everyone lives happily ever after, but quite clearly a message movie; if you agree with the message, you will love this film.
Disney may own Pixar these days, but there is an artistic divide between the two production styles. If you want predictable sentimentality watch Disney. I loved Disney's older classics but some of their later offerings with the exception of Beauty and the Beast which was very good - made me wince when I took my kids along. But in contrast I have loved every single film that Pixar have made since Toy Story in 1995, and if you want something more wry, but still possessing humour and heart, then Pixar is probably going to be your choice.
The story is simple enough. It's the year 2700 and the earth has become uninhabitable, not through some terrible cataclysmic event, but by a slow accumulation of suffocating junk. It's a wasteland devoid of living things. As the opening shots pan in, we see that the skyscrapers are actually tall mounds of compressed trash, and that the compressing is being done by WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth class), a small, solitary robot which keeps itself going by scavenging parts from all his clapped out siblings. WALL-E's only companion is a cockroach, and he fills in the time in his trailer home during long dust storms by watching an old video of Hello Dolly. WALL-E is an unlikely hero, rusty but trusty. I hesitate to use the word cute, endearing works better. One day he finds a single plant growing. He doesn't appreciate its significance but takes it home anyway where he squirrels it away with his other treasures such as a Rubic's Cube, a lighter and a trash can lid.
Then a space ship lands and EVE emerges (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator). Eve is in a whole different class to WALL-E. She can fly, he is earth bound, she is sleek, dangerous and single minded while he is bumbling and rather dowdy. They communicate with beeps and eye twitches, and WALL-E is hooked. When WALL-E gives EVE the plant he has found, she recognizes that her directive to find evidence of photosynthesis on earth is fulfilled and shuts down. The ship comes back to pick her up and WALL-E clings on, desperate not to lose her. Arriving at the mother ship, we find the last remaining humans (apparently all American!) who have fled the earth at the behest of the CEO of Buy N Large, a conglomerate who ended up running everything. The humans are pretty much big, obese babies, who have lost the use of their legs and are spoon fed artificial food and platitudinous slogans in equal measure. The rest of the movie involves a plot by the auto pilot to take over the ship and keep it on course away from earth, while the captain tries to take it home, aided by WALL-E and an entertaining array of quirky malfunctioning robots let loose from the repair bay.
Some of the best moments are to be found in WALL-E's interaction with everyday objects; a fire extinguisher for example, enables him to zip around in space in a balletic dance with EVE, he uses a lid as a hat to imitate the dancers he sees on his video screen. The humans are not presented as wicked or evil, just unthinking, and the movie ends on a positive and upbeat note, when they recover the use of their legs and return to earth to reclaim it as their home. There are nods to many classic sci-fi movies, Pixar's ubiquitous pizza truck is there near the beginning, and they are not beyond a little self criticism; there's a discarded iPod among WALL-E's accumulated junk.
I found myself caring far more about the animated characters in WALL-E than the supposedly human ones in many 'regular' movies. Director Andrew Stanton and everyone at Pixar deserve huge credit for this movie and I hope it is an enormous financial hit for them. I also hope it gets an Oscar nomination, not for best animated feature, but for best film.
Disney may own Pixar these days, but there is an artistic divide between the two production styles. If you want predictable sentimentality watch Disney. I loved Disney's older classics but some of their later offerings with the exception of Beauty and the Beast which was very good - made me wince when I took my kids along. But in contrast I have loved every single film that Pixar have made since Toy Story in 1995, and if you want something more wry, but still possessing humour and heart, then Pixar is probably going to be your choice.
The story is simple enough. It's the year 2700 and the earth has become uninhabitable, not through some terrible cataclysmic event, but by a slow accumulation of suffocating junk. It's a wasteland devoid of living things. As the opening shots pan in, we see that the skyscrapers are actually tall mounds of compressed trash, and that the compressing is being done by WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth class), a small, solitary robot which keeps itself going by scavenging parts from all his clapped out siblings. WALL-E's only companion is a cockroach, and he fills in the time in his trailer home during long dust storms by watching an old video of Hello Dolly. WALL-E is an unlikely hero, rusty but trusty. I hesitate to use the word cute, endearing works better. One day he finds a single plant growing. He doesn't appreciate its significance but takes it home anyway where he squirrels it away with his other treasures such as a Rubic's Cube, a lighter and a trash can lid.
Then a space ship lands and EVE emerges (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator). Eve is in a whole different class to WALL-E. She can fly, he is earth bound, she is sleek, dangerous and single minded while he is bumbling and rather dowdy. They communicate with beeps and eye twitches, and WALL-E is hooked. When WALL-E gives EVE the plant he has found, she recognizes that her directive to find evidence of photosynthesis on earth is fulfilled and shuts down. The ship comes back to pick her up and WALL-E clings on, desperate not to lose her. Arriving at the mother ship, we find the last remaining humans (apparently all American!) who have fled the earth at the behest of the CEO of Buy N Large, a conglomerate who ended up running everything. The humans are pretty much big, obese babies, who have lost the use of their legs and are spoon fed artificial food and platitudinous slogans in equal measure. The rest of the movie involves a plot by the auto pilot to take over the ship and keep it on course away from earth, while the captain tries to take it home, aided by WALL-E and an entertaining array of quirky malfunctioning robots let loose from the repair bay.
Some of the best moments are to be found in WALL-E's interaction with everyday objects; a fire extinguisher for example, enables him to zip around in space in a balletic dance with EVE, he uses a lid as a hat to imitate the dancers he sees on his video screen. The humans are not presented as wicked or evil, just unthinking, and the movie ends on a positive and upbeat note, when they recover the use of their legs and return to earth to reclaim it as their home. There are nods to many classic sci-fi movies, Pixar's ubiquitous pizza truck is there near the beginning, and they are not beyond a little self criticism; there's a discarded iPod among WALL-E's accumulated junk.
I found myself caring far more about the animated characters in WALL-E than the supposedly human ones in many 'regular' movies. Director Andrew Stanton and everyone at Pixar deserve huge credit for this movie and I hope it is an enormous financial hit for them. I also hope it gets an Oscar nomination, not for best animated feature, but for best film.