| Wall-E (2008) |
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| Saturday, 23 August 2008 | ||||||
 I’ve said it many times before… for my money, Pixar is not only the best animation film studio in the business… they are the best film studio period. This company simply doesn’t know how to make anything less than excellence. Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc, Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Cars… name another studio that is literally 8 for 8? So whenever a new Pixar film is in development, it instantly gets my attention, and Wall-E was no exception to that rule. 2008 has already been a great summer for movies with releases like Iron Man, Wanted, Dark Knight, Prince Caspian and a few others… would Wall-E live up to Pixar standards and keep the summer season moving forward? YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!
THE GENERAL IDEA The synopsis for Wall-E looks something like this: “Disney and Pixar join forces for this computer-animated tale about a wide-eyed robot who travels to the deepest reaches of outer space in search of a newfound friend. The year is 2700, and planet Earth has long been uninhabitable. For hundreds of years, WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) has been taking out the trash, and collecting precious knick-knacks in order to stave off the boredom of his dreary routine. Little does WALL-E realize that he has recently stumbled onto a secret that could save planet Earth, and once again make the ravaged planet safe for all humankind. When highly advanced search robot EVE makes friends with WALL-E and realizes the value of his remarkable discovery, she excitedly races back to let the humans know that there’s hope for their home planet after all. But after centuries alone in the world, WALL-E can’t stand the thought of losing the only friend he’s ever known, and eagerly follows her into the deepest reaches of space on the adventure of a lifetime. Along the way, the friendly trash-collecting robot who has always known what he was made for gradually begins to understand what he was meant for. Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton returns to the helm for this family-friendly sci-fi adventure featuring the voices of Fred Willard, Jeff Garlin, and Ben Burtt.”
THE GOOD The visual element of Wall-E is just breathtaking in some spots. The earth really does look like its been abandoned for hundreds of years. It is a vast, dreary landscape whose visual style communicates the nature and emotion of the predicament of the earth. It’s not often anymore that an animated film makes you look at some shots with a huge sense of awe… but Wall-E does that.
One of the big questions going into the movie that a lot of people has were “how interesting can this movie be when the main characters don’t actually talk?”. A fair question. When your two main characters (Wall-E and EVE) have about 90% of the screen time, and each basically only ever say “Wall-E” or “Eve”, the burden for storytelling falls onto the shoulders of the character performances (animation) and the art of visual storytelling, and my goodness did they ever hit it out of the park in this regard. Wall-E communicates worlds of information to the audience without ever saying a word just by how perfectly and beautifully he’s animated. His movements, his expression and his very nature are the tools by which this story is told without the use of words (there is dialog in the film from some other characters… but the majority of the movie is told by just watching and experiencing Wall-E himself).
This is not only a great animated movie… this is truly one of the greatest Science Fiction films I’ve seen since E.T. Great Sci-Fi doesn’t just give us giant robots and flashy space ships… but also observations about the human condition. Great science fiction acts as a looking glass on our reality from the perspective of the fantastic or the other worldly. Throughout the film, Wall-E makes serious observations about us as a society, and all done in such a way that none of it seems unrealistic. 700 years from now all humans are fat beyond reason, almost without the ability to walk at all. They are so connected into their technology that they become oblivious to simple observations about the world around them in which they live. They engorge themselves in their modern conveniences while destroying themselves at the same time. It’s difficult to go into too much without crossing into spoiler territory, but for now I’ll just leave it at that. Ok… we all knew this movie was going to be “cute”, as in the “awwwww” factor of it. But wow, it really is cute and endearing. I just fell in love with Wall-E and EVE as they go along on their little adventure. And I’m man enough to admit that near the end of the film I even felt some tears welling up in my eyes that I had to wipe away. Just so beautiful. Lots of fantastic humor too (which we’ve come to expect from Pixar) that kept you grinning or laughing almost the entire time. Not really “Wall-E” related… but the Pixar animated short film “Presto” that plays just before Wall-E is one of the best they’ve ever done too and added to my overall enjoyment of the evening.
THE BAD I’ve got nothing to add here
OVERALL This is the best film of 2008 so far, and if Wall-E doesn’t get nominated for Best Picture (not just the cheap cop-out Best Animated Picture) then I’m going to throw a total fit. This is a beautiful, smart, touching, hilarious and damn cute movie that I’m going to see at least 4 more times in the theater. It is the best film Pixar has ever made in my opinion… and the most complete one too. I loved this movie. Overall I give Wall-E a 9.5 out of 10.
3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved." |
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