An inconvenient truth for kids -- and adults.
How It Rates: ***1/2
Starring: Voices of: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, Macintalk
Rated: G
Red Flags: NONE! (unless you're one of those wingnuts who can't stand any form of ecological message in your films)
Pixar has a track record that leaves Hollywood moguls slobbering. Not one of its films has failed to crack the $100 million mark. They also do well in the critic-sphere. The studio once helmed by Steve Jobs has yet to produce a flop. Other computer-animation factories have sprouted, including PDI, DreamWorks Animation, and Disney's digital unit.
But Pixar has the one thing they've never captured: a universal appeal to both kids and adults. WALL-E takes what could've been a standard kid flick and gives it emotional depth and dimension. It may be the best love story ever conceived for robots, and I'm not counting 1981's pathetic Heartbeeps.
The story begins on a garbage-buried run-down Earth, deserted and dead of mass consumption enabled by superstore behemoth Buy 'N Large (poke, poke, Wal-Mart). Humans have long jetted off into space, leaving all the trash behind for droids to collect and stack into neat junkyard cubes. As the environment decomposed, and dust storms ravaged the planet, the junk-collecting robots ceased operation, save for the title character. We're not really sure if he knows he's the only functioning droid left on earth, but we do know he likes to collect cigarette lighters, kitchen utensils and bobbleheads. He's also an obsessive fan of the musical Hello, Dolly!, playing "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" over and over in his built-in digital music device as he cleans up other people's messes. A VHS tape of the Barbara Streisand movie version runs every night in his pad. I guess all the DVD's rotted away in landfills.
One day, a probe lands in the middle of this trash-heap Earth, deploying an egg-shaped droid named EVA. She's got that shapely body inspired by Apple and a blaster inspired by Han Solo. EVA immediately catches the eye of WALL-E's lovesick processor and he's set on interfacing in some old-fashioned way. EVA has a different mission: to find signs of life.
And that's WALL-E's overall charge to us, as we see humans of the future strung out on virtual reality and consumerism and bloated from sedentary lifestyles. They interact through computer screens, blind to natural beauty and the power of touch. No need for exercise when you've got a hoverchair and robots catering to your every desire aboard a galactic cruise ship with a virtual sun that also gives you the time and temperature. Aren't computers cool?
The movie draws from or channels a smorgasbord of sci-fi flicks, including Short Circuit, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Matrix, Blade Runner, Silent Running, Minority Report, and E.T..
WALL-E is a film you see with the kids and then talk about in the car ride home. You can talk about the cute robots, or you can talk about what happens when people spend too much time in front of the PlayStation or trash the environment. And adults, you can try to remember the last time your eyes watered over a pair of droids in love. You can try.
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