Movie Review: Wall-E

Title: Wall-E




Director: Andrew Stanton




Released: June 27, 2008




Runtime: 103 min.







Where Pixar found the cajones to make this movie I have no earthly clue, but they managed to conjure up the ghosts of Brave New World and 2001: A Space Odyssey and create an animated children’s movie the likes of which I have never seen, and truly doubt I will every witness again. Wall-E is, on the surface, a kid’s movie, but I’m hard pressed to fun much beyond the animation, the soft colors and cute robotic protagonist that is aimed at them. Oddly enough, this film is really for the very few adults who will actually give it the chance it deserves instead of snoozing while their kids stare at the wonderful animation.

Introducing the plot feels hallow to me after experiencing the spectacle first hand, but Wall-E is the story of the last robot running on earth, who spends his days building skyscrapers of compacted-trash. He does his job tirelessly and efficiently, but with a little lunch pail. He is a collector and a lover, who befriends the cockroaches because they are the only things left to befriend. Everything changes when he meets a girl (but then, doesn’t it always?) and fall heads over heels for her. From there the plot takes off until we meet Auto, who reminded me a lot of HAL, though not quite so disturbing of a character. For the rest, though, you’ll just have to go see it for yourselves.

From the opening shots of Earth, to the panning across the cityscape of some unnamed American city, we are given a view of the dusty-brown corpse of industrialization. Skyscrapers of trash jut into the air next to actual high-rises, a thick layer of age covering everything. With the interjection of Wall-E this landscape becomes a dichotomy of desolation and happiness. This will be repeated throughout the movie, but it really hits home here. Even in the worst places, the most barren and depressing wastelands there can be good, there can be happiness.

The amount of depth in the film is staggering, but what is more astounding is that it is woven so seamlessly and subtlety into the fabric of the story that it’s so easy to miss. Dressed up in all these pretty colors is a dystopian world that would make Orwell proud, for humanity has long ago polluted Earth beyond habitability and gone off to the stars for a sort of millennia-long cruise. There, they eat, sleep and let their entertainment rot their brains until they are less human than those pod-people from The Matrix. And stealing center stage from all of this is the idea that one little robot can be more human than any left alive. While the human cattle are being driven along by their robot servants, or would it be better to say masters, Wall-E is following his lonely heart with a self-sacrificing drive of a true hero.

Wall-E is the best movie I have seen in a long time, and it’s a shame to think that so many went to see Wanted instead of this masterpiece. Just go see it. A movie about a little junk collector robot managed to make me question what it truly means to be human. I am still sitting here, my head spinning, wondering how that is even possible. It is a disturbing look at the future if you really want to open your eyes and see, but above all else it is hopeful that humans and robots alike can progress if they are willing to sacrifice.

Rating: 5 stars