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"Wall*E" Review

by Jane Boursaw on June 28th, 2008

Wall*E is the perfect family movie: It’s smart, funny, has awesome computer graphics, and it’s rated G, which means it’s ok for all ages. I’d just like to climb inside the creative minds of the folks at Pixar, because Wall*E is right up there with The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and Toy Story, in terms of quality and creativity.

The main character, WALL*E (voiced by sound designer Ben Burtt, although he really doesn’t say much), is an adorable little trash-compacting robot. The letters stand for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class, and the little guy has been alone on Earth for hundreds of years (along with his pet cockroach), doing what he was built for — compacting vast mountains of trash into squares and stacking them up to make buildings made of trash (the symbolism isn’t lost on me — we humans are a bunch of major consumers).

More after the jump…

In his trash travels, WALL*E also collects interesting little knick-knacks, which he keeps in a dumpster-type building he calls home. Lightbulbs, Rubik’s cubes, lighters, iPods, and all manner of other tidbits populate the shed, along with valuable replacement parts for WALL*E himself.

One of his favorite knick-knacks is an old VHS video of Hello, Dolly!, which he pops into an ancient VCR and watches all the time. He’s particularly fond of the scene with Michael Crawford singing, “Put on your Sunday clothes, there’s lots of world out there…” More great symbolism.

All of this trash was left behind by the humans, who moved away from Earth and onto a space station called the Axiom about 700 years ago (Sigourney Weaver voices the ship’s computer). During all of this time, they’ve been sending robots to Earth, awaiting the day when it will once again be inhabitable. When one of those robots, a sleek, efficient model named EVE (voiced by Elissa Knight), lands on Earth to explore, WALL*E falls instantly in love, despite the fact that she tries to annihilate him on their first meeting.

When EVE returns to the space station, WALL*E tags along and is amazed by what he finds there: robots are running the place because the people are too fat and lazy to do it themselves — though John (John Ratzenberger) and Mary (Kathy Najimy) are starting to get a clue. All food is sold in a cup, so people can consume it without too much effort. They communicate via screens propped in front of them and, basically, have no interactions other than that. The Axiom has a human captain (voiced by Jeff Garlin), but you get the feeling it’s just a symbolic role, since he’s too fat to do much on his own.

Well, you can see where all this is headed. You leave the theater thinking, wow, we could actually end up this way if all this consumerism keeps up. But you also get the message that it’s never too late to reverse the trend. Hey, if a tiny little robot named WALL*E can do it, so can we.

Pixar is the master at bringing inanimate objects to life, and this movie is no exception. Director Andrew Stanton (who also wrote and directed Finding Nemo, executive produced Ratatouille, and lent his voice to Cars and The Incredibles) and his team have done a super job of injecting emotions into the two main characters (WALL*E and EVE). They really come alive, so much so that you’re not really thinking it isn’t possible.

Not only that, the first part of the movie has virtually no talking, but I was so intrigued by the vast world the filmmakers created, I didn’t really miss it.

Everything from the soundtrack (including lots of robotic noises), the computer graphics (down to the finest detail), and pop culture references make this a great movie for the whole family.

Images: WALL*E, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2008

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