#1109- WALL-E (2008)Starring: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin
Directed by: Andrew Stanton
Plot Summary: In the year 2085, Earth is unpopulated and cluttered with garbage due to years of consumerism by the Buy 'n' Large Corporation. Alone on Earth is WALL-E, a garbage collecting robot that has developed speech by being on Earth for 700 years. One day, WALL-E finds a growing seedling and takes it to his home, an abandoned storage truck. Shortly after, a spaceship deploys an EVE probe to search for vegetation on Earth. After many attempts, WALL-E befriends EVE and gives her the seedling which causes her to go into standby mode. Her spacecraft returns to take her and the seedling to the Axiom starliner. Determined to be with EVE, WALL-E boards the ship and ventures into outer space for the adventure of a lifetime.
After spending 4 months on what has felt like a film school project by going through the various decades of pop culture films, I thought it was time to transition back a genre I was comfortable with: Disney. These next seven reviews will round out my first 100 reviews (something I'm VERY excited about) and bring me back to the monthly review topics I'm used to. With that said, let's talk about WALL-E: a film I saw only once and was NOT initially impressed with. That's not to say I didn't like it, but I really couldn't understand why the majority of the world fell in love with this film in 2008. Add to the fact that this, along with the Toy Story Trilogy, are the only representations of Pixar on the list, and I was absolutely baffled. Why is WALL-E on this list, but Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Up aren't? Then, in my most recent viewing of the film, I was won over by enough of the film's charm to find it passable as a choice on the list. However, I still think there are a handful of BIG problems in the film and believe that there are other Pixar films more qualified to be on the list instead.
The titular character is WALL-E, a robot voiced by Ben Burtt. The key component to WALL-E's appeal is that he is cute. Oh, did I say cute? I think the more appropriate term to describe WALL-E's popularity is that viewers find him FREAKING ADORABLE. The world fell in love with WALL-E so easily because of the amount of emotion, speech, and mannerisms that the Pixar animators were able to give to a robot, which are normally supposed to be devoid of said characteristics. For a good portion of the film, he is the only character we see, but every moment he's on-screen is marvelous. His interactions are comedic, dramatic, heartwarming, and even heartbreaking. The audience really has an amazing, innocent main character in the form of WALL-E and it's easy to see how he's one of the most popular modern Disney characters.Another reason the world fell in love with WALL-E is through his romance with a futuristic robot named EVE, voiced by Elissa Knight. At first, EVE is on Earth just to complete her directive, but through interaction with WALL-E, is given humanity as well. I never thought seeing two robots fall in love would be as touching as it is here. All the emotions of a relationship are on display, even bits where EVE is irritated at WALL-E (but don't worry, it's only brief). In the world of Disney films, it's easy to poke fun at how fast romances blossom in the span of the film, but there is something really accurate about how they did it with WALL-E and EVE.
Normally, a quality animated film should have good animation, that should go without saying. In the case of WALL-E, it isn't just visually stunning for an animated film. It's visually stunning for film in general. The best amount of quality is on display in the various textures used to create Earth, humans, robots, and outer space. The scenes of WALL-E and EVE flying in space are absolutely breathtaking and rivals most live-action movies in recent years that have created space through the use of CGI. If the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was given for the animation quality alone, then it is no wonder why the film won the award in 2008.
I remember when I saw the trailers for the film when it was coming out and saw the opening sequences of WALL-E on Earth, and shots of him flying in space. Other than that, I wondered what else was in the movie. We get the answer in the form of fat humans who have lost a lot of bone structure due to over 700 years of lazy inactivity due to technological advancements after we destroyed Earth through pollution. WOW. If that isn't a political statement on environmentalism, I don't know what is. This seems like the type of theme you would find in an after school special (or FernGully), not an award winning Pixar film. I never would've pictured that being one of the main plot points in a film about a little cute robot.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
It's a shame that the problems I had with WALL-E were pretty important. Otherwise this would be one of my favorite animated films. Still, the film looks beautiful, the romance feels genuine, and the main character is so gosh darn adorable, this is one Pixar film worth checking out at least once and fans of animation should definitely have this in their collection.
WALL-E and movie images are copyrighted by Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios
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