Movie Notes: Wall-E

June 30th, 2008

= 4 stars

Starring Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Fred Willard
Directed by Andrew Stanton

Synopsis

About 700 years in the future, mankind has fled Earth and left it a polluted wasteland of concrete and garbage. Wall-E, the last trash-collecting robot, wanders the planet alone, until he encounters Eve, a modern probe droid with a specific purpose.

The Good

• The film’s first half is literally perfect, nearly devoid of dialogue as we get to know Wall-E, his life on Earth, and attempts to communicate with Eve. It’s a masterpiece of pantomime animation that recalls the earliest Pixar short Luxo Jr., and the romantic comedy is better than many live action ones starring real humans one might call actors.
• Tons of sci-fi movie references: Wall-E resembles Short Circuit and ET, robotic voices like the Star Wars droids (thanks Ben Burtt), a crowded hallway like THX-1138, and the second in command has a Hal-like eye from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• Cute nods to Apple (Steve Jobs is head of Pixar) — Wall-E uses an iPod, Eve’s white plastic exterior resembles an iMac, and Wall-E blurts the Mac start up chime when drained of solar power.
• A worthwhile environmental message and bleak vision of a technology-assisted / corporate-owned humanity — a comment on today’s society by showing a potential future. Pixar deserves credit for moving beyond slapstick comedy and tackling more serious subjects.

The Bad

• The robots are such strong characters, that once the relatively lackluster humans are introduced, the film drags. Our future, marshmallow-body-and-brain selves are so devoid of personality, and their leader is such a dud, that it was hard for me to relate to or care about them. Their physical and mental state fits with the movie’s message, but dramatically it bogs things down.
• Definitely not as many laughs as other Pixar films, less than Ratatouille and Cars combined.

Conclusion

This is a tricky film for me to review, since I thoroughly enjoyed all the Pixar movies with exception of Cars. Unfortunately, the amazing track record just begs for comparison between films, and on that level, Wall-E suffers: Toy Story 2 made me cry, while The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and Monsters Inc. had me laughing out loud. Even Ratatouille got my mouth watering. Wall-E’s second half didn’t move me — probably because I’ve already contemplated our current unsustainable lifestyle, lack of environmental concern, and our bleak future, and as far as bleak, dystopian sci-fi goes, there are many other, more cynical yet entertaining examples to choose from.

Wall-E is at the level of A Bug’s Life and better than Cars, but not a big, fawning, thumbs up as the The Incredibles. It’s worth seeing in the theater, but I politely refrain from calling it a masterpiece. The silent acting of the two robots was my revelation, but all else — not so much.

IMDB: Wall-E
Wikipedia: Wall-E
Rotten Tomatoes: Wall-E 97%