Rating:

Director Andrew Stanton and the team that delivered Finding Nemo help Pixar knock another one out of the park with their latest movie detailing the adventure had by an extremely lovable robot named WALL-E. In the film, we see that humans created so much trash on Earth that it can no longer sustain life and a plan was hatched that had the human race take a vacation into space. During this time away, a troop of robots called WALL-E’s (Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth class) will clean up all the mess we made and upon completion, we can return to the planet and do it all over again. The problem is that we never came back, and for some reason, the clean-up initiative was abandoned, leaving Wall-E alone. For 700 years, WALL-E continues his duties, his only companion in the form of a Twinkie eating cockroach, cleaning up the mess we made.

But WALL-E, being a very curious robot, has become fascinated with some of the items he has found during his duties, and rather than compacting them into cubes of compacted refuge, he saves them, using them to decorate his dwelling inside a large repair vehicle. Rubik’s Cube, lighters, sporks, bobble-heads, a wall fish that sings “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and one of his most treasured possessions, a video tape of the musical “Hello Dolly!” that he watches so much that he learns the dance moves. This VHS tape expands on a feelings that WALL-E has growing in him every day as he goes about his mundane duties; loneliness and the need for companionship. But WALL-E soon gets a visitor in the form of a sleek, weapon-toting robot named EVE who, aside from looking like an Apple product, has been dropped off on the planet and is hell-bent on accomplishing her directive which has her searching the landscape for something in particular. She is initially cold towards WALL-E, all but ignoring him after she almost destroyed him, but WALL-E is utterly infatuated with her and his persistence for her attention pays off in the form of some slight bonding between the pair while taking refuge from a wind storm. But before WALL-E can make his big move, the ship that dropped Eve off on the planet comes back to retrieve her. This leads to WALL-E latching on the ship, determined to follow EVE wherever she is headed and win her heart.

This is the first 2/3 of WALL-E and it is, without a doubt, a classic and harks back to the classic silent films of Charlie Chaplin. Aside from a few scenes involving some billboards that still function on Earth, and clips from the movie WALL-E watches incessantly, no verbal communication is used throughout this part of the movie. Using audio designed by sound designer extraordinaire, Ben Burtt, the man responsible for the audioscapes for the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, and the expert animations from the people at Pixar, the audience is never in doubt as to what Wall-E is expressing or feeling throughout the film. Curious, happy, scared, anxious, love, sad…all the emotions done with non-verbal sound and visual cues. This portion of the film is as close to perfect a film can get. The animation is amazing and extremely detailed. From every bolt in WALL-E’s construction, to the post-apocalyptic vision of Earth’s landscape. The fact that WALL-E remains 100 percent engaging during this portion of the film, even with no dialog, is a true testament on just how well WALL-E works.

While the second half of the film does not equal the same classic film making as the first, it is still one of the more entertaining Pixar films ranking alongside The Incredibles and even Toy Story. This final act shows us EVE’s world, a complete opposite environment WALL-E is accustomed to. consisting of a plethora of robots and humans existing together in a pampered life aboard the cruise ship-ish Axiom. We see that for the last 700 years, the human race has grown fat and lethargic as they live out their days in hovering chairs equipped with displays hovering inches in front of their face, while robots cater to the every want or need. This is when the film moves into conventional territory and relies more on the comical situations one expects from a Pixar film and introduces us to a few more of the main characters.

The majority of these characters are the robot variety, but like WALL-E and EVE, they are some of the most memorable robots since Star Wars. Some standouts are the ships navigational system, OTTO (pilot), a robot fashioned after a boats steering helm, who is also the films main protagonist. Another is  M-O, a tiny robot whose main function is to clean foreign contaminants and spends the majority of the film obsessively cleaning up WALL-E’s tracks throughout the pristine halls of the Axiom. There are humans in this film, and while most of them are shown as fat lemmings being whisked away from one point in the ship to the next before going to sleep, there are a few that take center stage and are integral to the plot. John (John Ratzenberger)and Mary (Kathy Najimy) are two of these characters who through a small series of events triggered by WALL-E, are “awakened” when the monitors in front of them are turned off. And then there is the Captain (Jeff Garlin). He is the current captain of the Axiom and is jarred from his mundane, predictable routine by EVE and WALL-E. These likable characters play a very important role in the sub-plots of the film, and another reason that WALL-E is so endearing. He really is oblivious to the impact he is making on the people around him, concerned only with gaining EVE’s affection and her safety. This crude robot, with his persistence, resourcefulness and ingenuity, affects everyone, and everything, he comes in contact with.

The underlying theme of the dangers of pollution and destroying the environment are there, but thankfully they are not at all heavy-handed. There is also a bit of social commentary on corporations and humans becoming just a bit too bombarded with all the technical gadgets that make life easier and keep us connected without actually being connected…which is kind of ironic considering the source of this message is Disney. The humans and robots aboard the Axiom had become so reliant on protocol and convenience, they are suffering from loneliness even though they are surrounded by each other. They are just too distracted to notice it. That is the a lot of the pleasure you will derived from the film, watching how WALL-E’s pursuit of EVE, and his seemingly simple actions like waving at another robot, or even just introducing himself, have massive effects that ripple throughout the ship, helping to wake people from the media induced coma they had fallen into and lead them all to chart an entirely different course.

WALL-E is the best film I have seen this year, hands down. They did such an amazing job with WALL-E as a character, that you just cannot help but root for the little guy almost immediately after meeting him. It is a wonder in film making and I give kudos to Andrew Stanton and the rest of the Pixar team who made me, a non-softie who usually resists having his emotions blatantly toyed with when watching a film, feel his rusty heartstrings being pulled effectively whenever things go WALL-E’s way. An EASY 9/10 and a film I cannot wait to watch again.