Movie Review: WALL-E
by Theresa Carpine6/30/2008 11:54:48 AM
Login to leave ratings
Average Rating : 0.0
Just in time for the sweltering dog days of summer (and the three-day holiday weekend), WALL-E makes its way into theatres. And following in the tradition of previous Pixar Animation Studios movies, WALL-E blends inventive computer-generation animation, a serene score, and thoughtful storytelling that appeals to kids and adults.
After tackling, toys, monsters, and superheroes, Pixar found another subject that fascinates kids—robots—to make their ninth full-length film. Set 700 years in the future, WALL-E tells of the last robot on Earth, a Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class (or WALL-E), who spends his days creating building blocks out of the mountains of garbage that have been left on Earth by its former inhabitants. He entertains himself by collecting some of the more fascinating remnants, like a spork, and watching a video of the 1969 musical Hello, Dolly.
WALL-E’s world gets turned around when a sleek and mysterious robot named EVE arrives on Earth. Her mission is to find signs of life on the desolate planet and report her findings to The Axiom, a space ship that has been the surrogate home to the last remaining humans. But when EVE (with stowaway WALL-E) returns to the ship to share what she has discovered, others aboard the ship has different ideas about the future course of humankind.
While WALL-E suggests a rather bleak perspective of the future, it does so without being too dark. Sure, the world may be overwrought with waste and humans have become sedentary automatons who sit in hover chairs with their eyes glued to a TV screen as they consider what food (in a cup) to consume next, but the film ends on a hopeful note for the future. However, I can’t ignore the irony that I received this cautionary message while sitting in a cushy chair, staring at a giant screen, with jumbo-sized soda and popcorn available down the hall at the concession stand.
But, for our faults, the humans in WALL-E aren’t made out to be “the bad guys,” and neither are the antagonist robots (although the Axiom’s Autopilot, especially, is a big nod to HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey). As in real life, things are more complicated that. Both entities make mistakes, and they work together to overcome their obstacles.
For a movie with virtually no dialogue for the first half especially, WALL-E relies heavily on the visuals and music to tell the story. There are plenty of sight-gags to incite childish laughter, but the movie also features some beautiful scenes, like a dance in space shared by WALL-E and EVE to an ethereal score by Thomas Newman, which truly embodies Pixar writer and director Brad Bird’s philosophy that animation is not a genre, but an art form.
One of the things that I have always admired about Pixar films is how well they blend life lessons for kids into their movies. Many of their stories, WALL-E included, focus on taking responsibility for one’s actions and how we should look after one another (I have a feeling that is influenced by the fact that many members Pixar’s creative team are in the midst of fatherhood and continually confronting these issues themselves).
Without getting too preachy, this film offers opinions about consumption and how we treat our planet. As with the Axiom’s captain, whose curiosity about Earth is far from sated when he learns the definition of soil, WALL-E might be the first seed planted in your child’s mind to pique their interest in where our garbage goes and what we can do to make less of it.
What's your take on this movie? We’d love to hear it! Leave a comment or post in the Forum to share your opinion on WALL-E and other family movies!