WALL•E
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2008 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ****
For quite some time now, Pixar has set the gold standard when it comes to
animated movies. WALL•E, its latest film, is so good that any star
rating
seems inadequate to fully express how absolutely wonderful it is. That
most
of it is set in space is particularly appropriate since this movie
deserves
ratings that soar past the stratosphere. It's the best film Pixar has
ever
made, which is a high compliment indeed. It's also the best film of the
year. (Okay, so I haven't seen all of this year's offerings. There could
be a better film later, but I highly doubt it. WALL•E is nothing less
than
one of the best films I've ever seen. Let me even go one step further.
It
is one of the movies ever made!)
When starting to comment on WALL•E, the old phrase "words cannot
express"
immediately comes to mind. This movie left me breathless, since it is so
magical and touching. A more apt title for it might be WALL•E'S GREAT
ADVENTURE: A LOVE STORY. If you can remember the first time you saw and
instantly fell in love with E.T. in E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL, you'll
have
some sense of what to expect on your first viewing of WALL•E. Moreover,
WALL•E features not one but two adorable leads. That would be WALL•E
(voiced by Ben Burtt) and Eve (voiced by Elissa Knight). There are also
lots of equally sweet sup****ting characters.
Saying who provides the voice talent for WALL•E and Eve is somewhat
misleading. Yes, both of the characters speak, but rarely. I think
WALL•E
has a vocabulary of about two words, and Eve isn't a whole lot more
loquacious. WALL•E is a film that grabs your imagination and holds it
for
its fast 97-minute running time, but there is almost no dialog in the
first
thirty minutes. If you think that might be the recipe for fidgeting
children, you'd be wrong. Our packed audience, filled with kids of all
ages, including a ***agenarian like me, was clearly enthralled throughout,
laughing hard and being absolutely entranced by what was transpiring on
the
screen in front of us.
Sometimes nominally "kids' movies" like E.T., and another favorite of
mine,
THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER, capture the hearts and minds of the audience
regardless of their age. So it is with WALL•E, which is filled with joy
and
love. It's also the best date movie of the year.
Not that WALL•E needs it, but it comes with a warm-up act. It is
preceded
by a five-minute short titled PRESTO that is a laugh riot. It's a really
cute film about a rebellious rabbit who makes his living working for a
magician. All the rabbit wants for his pay is a big juicy carrot, which
seems to always be just outside of his reach. They might as well hand the
Oscar for Short Film (Animated) to PRESTO now. It's nothing short of
great.
And WALL•E will obviously take home the statuette for Best Animated
Feature
Film.
WALL•E opens in the year 2775 in what appears to be an abandoned Earth,
which has trash and memorabilia everywhere but not single living soul
left.
A little robot named WALL•E toils away, enjoying his work of gathering,
sorting and compacting into foot-sized cubes all of the debris that is
everywhere. In his trailer, he organizes the best stuff into carefully
defined categories. Oddball items like s****ks tem****ally confuse him, but
he cheerfully finds some logical place to put everything. For
entertainment, he likes to watch an old videotape of HELLO, DOLLY! For
companion****p, he has a trusty little cockroach, which may or may not be
some sort of robot too.
One day into WALL•E's life of solitude comes Eve. (I am sure that the
choice of her name was not exactly random.) At any rate, the two of them
hit it off, even if his introduction to her comes when she tries to blast
him out of existence with arms which comes equipped with powerful weapons.
Eve is a sleek white robot that looks like a designer egg made by Apple,
while WALL•E appears more a contraption that BACK TO THE FUTURE's Dr.
Emmett
Brown might have come up with, since WALL•E looks like a bunch of pieces
of
junk stuck together.
Eve has come on a mission to Earth, having been sent by the human race,
who
now all live in a luxurious space craft in outer space. The second half
of
the movie occurs back on the space craft called Axiom. This segment
includes what is essentially a dance number in space, as Eve watches while
WALL•E propels himself around her with the use of a fire extinguisher.
The
output of the fire extinguisher forms beautiful crystals that glisten.
It's
a gorgeous number that will really capture your heart.
Humans in the twenty-eighth century have been so pampered by their robotic
servants that they have become obese butterballs who have lost the ability
to stand up. This is no problem, since they float around on their backs
in
comfortable lounge chairs. In an existence that looks like a life lived
in
its entirety on a cruise ****p, they are greeted with constant chirpy
announcements. Typical of these is a proclamation, "Attention Axiom
shoppers. Try blue. It's the new red." This causes all of the guests of
this cruise ****p in the sky to punch a button which gives them the great
pleasure of instantly discarding their old unfa****onable clothes color for
a
new one.
The last act of the film appears like it may try to end in one of those
unendurable sermons that filmmakers like to preach to the kids, but it
doesn't. Instead the movie makes its messages clear without the need for
pedantic lecturing.
When the closing credits roll, you are going to have a hard time letting
go.
The characters are all so endearing that you just aren't ready to say
goodbye to them. This predicament, of course, can be solved by seeing the
film again and again, in the theaters and later on DVD. Trust me. You're
going to want to own this movie. But, before it is available on DVD, see
it
on the big screen at least once. Life is too short to miss a treasure
like
WALL•E.
WALL•E runs a fast 1:37. It is rated G and would be acceptable for all
ages.
My son Jeffrey, age 19, said that it was definitely his number one film of
the year. Giving it ****, he almost started hyperventilating as he ticked
off the large number of the things he absolutely loved about WALL•E. He
said it was the best love story in a long time and that he loved both it
and
PRESTO from beginning to end. He really connected with all of the
characters, even the cockroach. Overall, he found it extremely sweet.
His
girlfriend Yasmin, almost 19, said that she "loved, loved, loved it" and
that she gave it "5 million stars, enough said." She then went on to say
more anyway, including declaring that it was her favorite film of the
year,
and that it was even better than FINDING NEMO, her previous favorite Pixar
film.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, June 27, 2008.
In
the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century
theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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