WALL-E is about the most unconventional animated feature film you will likely ever encounter. It’s strange, it’s moving, it’s powerful, and it’s pretty darn spectacular. Realistically speaking, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise considering this is big-budget Pixar/ Disney all the way, was done by the director of Finding Nemo, and boarded by the creative storytellers behind Cars and Ratatouille.
By now you’ve read that there is bare minimum dialog in this picture and it is the first of its kind to integrate live-action segments with computer generated imagery. It’s set in the distant future on a nearly unrecognizable earth and humanity, in an evolved state of disability no less, doesn’t even make an appearance till the latter portion of the film. A majority of the lead character’s interaction exists between a silent robot and a cockroach and yet despite these areas (or perhaps because of them), WALL-E delivers heart-warming entertainment in spades.
The plot takes place approximately seven hundred years in the future, and finds the earth over-run with garbage/ devoid of plant and animal life; the consequence of years of environmental degradation and thoughtless consumerism.
Humans, apparently having run themselves right off the globe, are now living on a self-sustaining spacecraft known as the Axiom after vacating Earth some centuries earlier. The plan, it seems, was for humans to vacate the planet temporarily while cleaning robots prepared the earth for re-colonization. However, after seven hundred years of working tirelessly in a harsh environment, all of the robots have deteriorated and broken down except for a single small cleaning robot, a "Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class" to be exact: WALL-E.
WALL-E spends his days compacting trash into solid blocks and building massive structures out of these cubes to await removal by harvester robots that are no longer operational. The film flawlessly displays the reality that the lonesome little robot collects some of the more interesting artifacts he uncovers in the trash and keeps them in the back of a broken down truck that serves as his home. At night he watches a clip of "Hello Dolly" he recovered through a VCR he wired to an iPod with dreams of sharing his weird little world with someone, anyone else.
His life makes a remarkable change after countless years of loneliness when an enormous spacecraft touches down and deposits another, much more advanced robot, EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator).
Nominated for and winner of dozens of awards, Wall-E manages to depict more heart and elicit more emotion for its speech impaired title character than a majority of modern dialog-rich motion pictures combined. Due to the combination of near-flawless pacing, direction that blends photo realistic backdrops with lovely character models, and a sound score (including effects by Ben Burrtt), WALL-E harkens back to capture a feel that can only be compared to some of the soaring achievements of early silent films.
About the only complaint to the entire film that may resonate some consideration is that young children may find the entire premise/ presentation a bit too tedious for their rapid-fire attention spans. This is a film that relishes subtleties of the human condition over slapstick or abundant humor attempts. A certain level of maturity is expected to fully appreciate the prose, meaning older kids and adults will find much to love here.
Even going into WALL-E with enough hype to raise even the humblest of expectations to the point of disappointment, I still came away amazed at how well Pixar has mastered the subtleties of capturing emotion in their works. Considered the founders of the whole computer generated animation movement, it’s evident with each Pixar production that remaining the leader of the genre is no fluke.
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FM_ALEXSeptember 05, 2010
This was a really good one indeed but every one around me thinks it's sad, sadly I don't think so. Great review once again good sir.
JRiderSeptember 05, 2010
Awesome comment! My buds and I are pretty evenly split down the middle on it too. It seems like you can get yourself feeling a little dumpy if you focus on Wall-E's lonesome existence but at the same time it's really a positive tale of how his "life" sparked the rejuvenation of the human species on our home planet. Thanks again for the feedback, appreciate that.
Nice review. I liked this one but honestly, I thought it was so inferior to Ratatouille, Incredibles and Toy Story. It was good, but I dunno, it never hit the homerun for me. Thanks for the great return to our community, Jason!
JRiderSeptember 05, 2010
Oh William the Pixar films I have yet to visit! I have The Incredibles and Ratatouille on my shelf as we speak, awaiting absorption. Did Monster House last night and absolutely loved it. Reviews to follow! Thanks as always my man.
woopak_the_thrillSeptember 06, 2010
You're welcome. I thought Monster House was a lot better than most people gave it credit for. Can hardly wait for the review....
After being annoyed by this film's advertisements plastered all over public transit cars, I didn't really care to see it. But, a friend brought the DVD over one day and it turned out to be an excellent movie! For a "kid's" movie, it's quite innovative and sophisticated. First off, the visuals in this film are incredible! The rich colors and textures are quite mesmerizing. Since it takes place in both a decaying, dirty, abandoned earth and … more
Robots can hold an audience, absolutely! Ok, so I am the biggest skeptic when it comes to certain movies and especially cartoon movies. Don't get me wrong, some of my favorite movies are in animation, but robots? I did not want to see this movie for nothing. I thought of all the Disney/Pixar films, this was going to be one of the worst because it had seemed to be one of the most hyped films. Ok, so we start out with Wall-E on a deserted earth trekking daily out to his … more
What an endearing robot Wall-E is! I hated the vision of fatties in lounge chairs, the direction we are going in, but the robot made it a fun movie to watch.
Pixar has come of age my friends. Pixar has never made a bad movie, in fact I'd consider almost all of them to be a masterpiece, but none of them, before now, have tried to be anything more then emotional family affairs, not that there is anything wrong with that, but they weren't necessarily deep, meaningful beyond personal issues, or revealed anything about our society. Now, I say again, there isn't anything wrong with that, but Wall-E goes beyond … more
cute flick about little robot. funny segment where the bot goes into space and encounters slug-like humans with little minds and no initiative served by a robot work-force.
pixar wins again...like they always do. With barely any, if not any, spoken dialogue in this movie but some beeps and sounds that only come from things you can purchase at best buy, it still captivates you and I'm not gonna lie def made me cry..one tear...I work out
This futuristic film follows the adventures of a lonely robot named Wall-E who follows an intriguing "female" robot EVE to a large spaceship, within which the remaining human population is residing after evacuating Earth many years earlier after it was essentially destroyed by an overabundance of man-made garbage. The reason this movie is so intriguing is that it holds audiences fully captivated with minimal to no dialogue for most of the movie, a trait unheard … more
Jason Rider (AKA OneNeo on Amazon.com) is the author of the successful children's fantasy novel series The Uncommon Adventures of Tucker O'Doyle from Bellissima Publishing. … more
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WALL-E is a 2008 computer-animated science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton. It follows the story of a robot named WALL-E who is designed to clean up a waste-covered Earth far in the future. He eventually falls in love with another robot named EVE, and follows her into outer space on an adventure that changes the destiny of both his kind and humanity.
After directing Finding Nemo, Stanton felt Pixar had created believable simulations of underwater physics and was willing to direct a film largely set in space. Most of the characters do not have actual human voices, but instead communicate with body language and robotic sounds, designed by Ben Burtt, that resemble voices. In addition, it is the first animated feature by Pixar to have segments featuring live-action characters.
Walt Disney Pictures released it in the United States and Canada on June 27, 2008. The film grossed US$23.1 million on its opening day, and $63 million during its opening weekend in 3,992 theaters, ranking #1 at the box office. This ranks as the fourth highest-grossing opening weekend for a Pixar film as of May 31, 2009. Following Pixar tradition, WALL-E was paired with a short film, Presto, for its theatrical release. WALL-E has been met with overwhelmingly positive reviews among critics, scoring an approval rating of 96% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
It grossed $534 million worldwide, won the 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature...
