I had planned to open this review with a spiel about how much I dislike seeing and reviewing kids movies. I was going to talk about how much I hate cramming into a theater with dozens of seniors and their many grandchildren, and point out that these sort of films are virtually review-proof because of their easy appeal. Left unsaid would be the fact that I simply don't enjoy these sort of movies, because I haven’t been six for eighteen years.
I'll save that for another review. "WALL-E" is a fantastic film, as suitable for adults as it is for kids. Like so many good children's stories, this one is a little dark, a playfully grim undercurrent running beneath the story. It's protagonist is WALL-E, a diminutive, dinged-up robot that happens to be one of the only active beings on Earth. Nearly a thousand years into the future, our planet has been abandoned, all that pollution finally having made our environment uninhabitable.
WALL-E spends his days collecting the physical remnants of our presence on the planet, which consists of trillions of tons of garbage. So vast is the waste that WALL-E constructs skyscrapers out of compacted trash cubes. His acronym name explains his behavior: Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth. WALL-E works during the day, compacting garbage and collecting items he finds interesting, such as computer parts, Christmas lights, engagement ring cases, and most importantly, plants. He rests in a storage container at night, spending his evenings watching "Hello, Dolly!" on VHS, suggesting the format has a longer lifespan than originally thought. His only company: a friendly cockroach.
This changes when EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), a sleek lady robot that resembles a floating iPod, lands on Earth to survey the area, WALL-E is smitten. If "Hello, Dolly!" has anything to teach robots, it's that life is incomplete without true love, so WALL-E puts the moves on EVE, in a sort of non-organic G-rated movie way. This part of "WALL-E" is more reminiscent of a silent film than a Disney kid-pleaser, as the two robots communicate through actions and expressions rather than their extremely limited vocal vocabulary. Here is a neat reminder of the way romance is mostly non-verbal, and it speaks to the failure of so many films that the bonding between this pair of cartoon robots is vastly more moving than most flesh and blood onscreen couples. It's a truly jaded moviegoer that won't feel touched by the very human-like
But soon, the film shifts into satire as WALL-E and EVE pay visit to the Axiom, a giant cruise ship in space and apparently the sole remaining bastion of humanity. "It's the 700 year anniversary of our five year cruise," announces the ship's captain to the passengers, not one of whom can walk or has the faintest clue what their ancestor's lives were like other than the abundance of super-store ads plastered all over the ship. It's a sort of gentle but firm satire that bites even as it willingly ignores the irony of a $180,000,000 corporate product delivering the message. With a film this good, you can forgive when it steps on its own toes.
"WALL-E" strikes that nearly impossible balance between childish whimsy and mature marvel, and it does so embracing the notion that the two aren't mutually exclusive properties. WALL-E makes for arguably the most sympathetic synthetic protagonist seen since "Blade Runner," his antics and fascinations with our culture managing to be endearing while avoiding kitschiness. A Pixar film, the stellar animation is to be expected, but the level of visual and creative detail here sets the bar to a new high. From a dilapidated earth to the brightly dotted tapestry of the galaxy, "WALL-E" teems with optical delights that enhance the beauty of the mental and emotional rewards.
Now I'm struck with a different sort of skepticism: I can't imagine that I'll see a better film all summer.
4.5 out of 5
