'WALL-E': Intergalactic Gem & Animation Triumph

by Brett Parker

When it comes to family-friendly animated movies, I’m usually not the guy to talk to. I think the last time I actually paid to see one in theatres was when I took my Mother to see Shrek 2 for her birthday. Don’t get me wrong, I have great admiration for the technical skill that goes into the craft (especially from the Pixar folks) and I think most animated flicks of today’s era are full of wit and smarts, making kids of today look awfully lucky. I know plenty of grown-ups who still pay to see these family films in theatres, yet somewhere along the line, I truly lost the urge to go. I guess I like my entertainment grown up and my heart doesn’t respond to cartoon characters like it used to. What can I say? This lost boy grew up.

Yet there was something about WALL-E that made me want to check it out on opening weekend. This one looked considerably different from all the rest. Maybe it was the fact that the Outer Space imagery looked mystical and captivating. Maybe it looked as if it could touch my soft spot for goofy robots. Maybe it was the film’s promise that there would be a minimum of dialogue, eliminating potential for a buffoonish script. Or maybe it was just because the character of WALL-E looked like such a fun-loving little guy that you’d want to spend an entire movie with him. I was very excited to discover that WALL-E delivers on all these promises from the previews and that it will stand the test of time to become an animated classic. This one’s the real deal.

The film opens 700 years into the future. Planet Earth is covered in excessive amounts of garbage, leading humans to abandon the planet and live in a luxury starship at the edge of the galaxy. Earth’s clean-up is left in charge of WALL-E Units (Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth class), little robots designed to gather and compact trash into small cubes. A malfunction occurs causing all the WALL-E units to break down, except for one who happens to be the liveliest of the whole bunch. This WALL-E robot spends his days single handedly carrying out his clean-up mission, all while gathering small pieces of garbage treasure that he cheerfully collects in a small cooler (these treasures include a rubix cube, bubble paper, a jewelry box, etc.).

WALL-E appears to be a robot with a soul, capable of such emotions as fascination, curiosity, and as we come to learn, loneliness. Being the sole occupant of Earth is starting to affect WALL-E’s personal state. As he watches an old VHS copy of Hello Dolly!, WALL-E begins to yearn for a romantic loved one to complete him. He finds a candidate one day when a giant spaceship arrives on Earth to drop off EVE (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), an advanced robot with noticeably feminine features. Its love at first sight for WALL-E and the little guy is able to strike up a friendship with the female robot, hoping it will turn into something more. But then things grow complicated when EVE discovers a sign of plant life in WALL-E’s treasures. She takes the plant and is retrieved by the spaceship that brought her to Earth in the first place. Not wanting to give up his only love, WALL-E hitches a ride on the spaceship and is soon whisked away through the galaxy towards the mother ship where all human life now exists. It is on this ship where WALL-E will discover how unhealthy and lazy humans have become, what his plant means for the future of the human race, and whether or not EVE truly loves him back.

In a lesser movie, the robots would have goofy character voices that strain for laughs and the plot would cater to the intellect of a five year old. WALL-E is way too smart for that. It has the charms of a silent comedy and the ideals of complex science fiction. There is virtually no dialogue for the first half-hour, we simply sit back and observe WALL-E taking simple pleasure in finding junk and trying to convey his feelings toward EVE. Only electronic clicks and squeaks are used to give these robots some kind of voice and it feels a thousand times more effective then if cartoon dialogue was written for their scenes. Buster Keaton would’ve been proud. WALL-E also works as a fascinating science fiction film thanks in no small part to the wonderful outer space imagery that surrounds the film’s second and third acts. So awesome are these scenes of stars and spaceships that we feel a child-like sense of wonderment and awe towards space we haven’t felt in a very long time. Sci-Fi nowadays has grown very bleak and uninspired, so watching WALL-E is like feeling a burst of imagination and whimsy that made us love Sci-Fi in the first place. This is especially felt in a beautiful scene where WALL-E uses a fire extinguisher to fly around the stars with EVE outside of a starship. It’s a dazzling scene that not only would’ve made Kubrick proud, but shows us why we see movies on the big screen in the first place.

Of course the film would probably not work quite as well if it weren’t WALL-E himself. Not since E.T. has a little screen creature had such a likeable cuteness about him with a muted curiosity that is wonderfully amusing. People have noted that WALL-E bears a strong resemblance to Johnny 5 from Short Circuit, yet I think WALL-E outdoes the former in both screen presence and heart. It’s fascinating how WALL-E can convey so many complex emotions in such a limited metal body. A pair of binocular eyes and robotic claws is really all there is to WALL-E, but he is still one of the most colorful and compelling animated characters ever created. The way his hollow binocular eyes strongly resembles human eyes is astonishing. It’s also fascinating to note how even though WALL-E and EVE essentially resemble advanced robotic parts, the animators are still able to highlight that they are both male and female beings.

It’s almost getting to be a tired phrase by saying “Pixar has done it again,” but what else can you say when after churning out picture after picture of supreme animation and creativity, they now have created a sci-fi wonderment for the ages? The film has the crisp and slick attention to detail their animation always has all while approaching a fountain of ideas. Almost all animated movies convey general moral messages that are meant to influence younger viewers and remind older ones. Pixar is always able to do this with a subtle finesse as opposed to countless other pictures that cheaply shove it in the audience’s face. What really impressed me about WALL-E is the richness and depth of the film’s message. The humans on the starship are portrayed as overweight and lazy consumers who are like zombie slaves to technology and advertising. It isn’t until signs of plant life turn up that the humans are intrigued by the simple pleasures of Earth and living. I applaud the filmmakers for highlighting to viewers that they should rise above our technological and consumer cultures to get back to the simple pleasures of our planet. How brilliant it is that the filmmakers have taken our anxieties and issues over the abuse of the environment and have brought insightful depths to it in an animated medium. This could be the most lighthearted post-apocalyptic film ever made.

What’s even more redundant than saying “Pixar has done it again” is to exclaim that an animated film is “fun for all ages.” But let me tell you something: at any other time, I wouldn’t be caught dead in a theatre playing an animated family movie. I went to WALL-E out of a peculiar curiosity and the film exceeded all of my expectations. Forget animated conventions: if you love dazzling visuals, sci-fi spectacles with heart, and even old school cinematic romance, buy a ticket for WALL-E. This is not only destined to be the best animated film of the year, but probably one of the best overall films of the year.