WALL-E

Review by Matthew Rodgers

Last summer was dominated by huge, technologically advanced, some say vacuous (not me) robots of the Transforming kind. This year (well, a distant and wholly possible future year) we have a robot of a different kind; cruelly he could be dubbed Short Circuit metallic idiot, Johnny 5’s stumpy little brother but he is so much more than that. WALL-E, or Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth Class to give him his deserved title, is an astounding creation of hope, heartbreak, and personality that radiates to every corner of this PIXAR painted screen. This little guy will be Batmans biggest adversary this summer.

Long after the humans have deserted a planet that they’ve laid waste to only WALL-E remains, moving amongst beautiful skyscrapers of compacted waste and echoes of lonliness he traverses lanscapes scattered with Rubiks cubes and faulty Atari’s doing what he was meant to do. No ordinary automiton though he returns home to his pet cockroach and repeated viewings of 1969’s Hello Dolly, longing for companionship, tear-inducingly clutching his own hand, that is until the day he spots something in the sky.

PIXAR set the bar don’t they? Everytime a film is released reviews gush at how they have pushed the barrier of computer animation even further; from Sully’s individual fur definition to Remy the Rat’s Parisian pastelles, the superlatives are always justified. Wall-E is no different, but what Andrew Stanton has created in the barren vista of Earth is no longer a canvas on which to animate the story’s characters, but environment as a character itself. Unforgiving, harsh, cruel, it really is our tinpot hero’s only real villian bar the tiresome environmental messgae and attack on societies consumerist culture, Wall-E’s world is not a nice place but the biggest oxymoron is that its hypnotically stunning.

Wall-E himself is also a stunning creation, saying more with his tilted goggle eyes than any hyperactive squirrel or dancing penguin could do throughout an enitire movie. The first (and superior) half of the movie is almost a throwback to silent, slpastick features of Hollwood’s golden era, and the arrival of EVE exemplifies the emotional pathos that the robot pair generate, an exchange of bleeps and boops between the two is as emotionally satisfying as any multi-written drama dialogue. So much care has gone into the construction of these breathtaking bots and the results are, sorry, out of this world.

The only time that Wall-E threatens to power down is when the action switches locales to the human controlled off-world space station. The intimacy is removed in favour of visual overload and fast-paced, sometimes repetetive (EVE’s constant “directive” distraction becomes exactly that) plot threads. It’s still fascinating stuff and probably a conscious decision by PIXAR not to alienate their target audience with the emotion heavy opening. Wall-E is never less than cute but this is PIXAR’s most grown-up offering to date and despite the visual gags the young-uns may shift in their seat before take-off.

It’s not hype to suggest that Wall-E is one of the best family films since ET: The Extra Terrestrial and must be consumed on the biggest screen available. Go on, get lost in space.