WALL•E (2008) Movie Review

Every summer or Thanksgiving holiday it seems that Walt Disney Pictures rolls out a Pixar Animation Studio film that ultimately becomes one of the best films of the year. From Toy Story to Monsters, Inc. to Finding Nemo to The Incredibles to last years Ratatouille, the incredible work by Pixar never stops amazing audiences with their state of the art visual animation and more than anything gifted storytelling. This summer’s treat is unlike any Pixar film or any film in general, with the wonderful Wall-E.

The film is set during the 28th century where Earth is a trash yard due to pollution with only two living things left, a small trash compacting robot named WALL-E (voiced by Ben Burtt) and his pet cockroach. Humans left the planet centuries ago to live in space on cruise type of spaceships, with robots like WALL-E, which stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-Class, left to help clean the place up. The atmosphere is post-apocalyptic and looks like a something out of Mad Max or Resident Evil, full of brown and yellowish dirt and numerous trash compacted squares precisely placed by WALL-E to reflect deserted skyscrapers. WALL-E collects various objects and things to fill his daily curiosity, which includes a VHS copy of Hello Dolly! He is lonely, but things change with the arrival of EVE, a white robotic probe sent to earth to look for evidence that there is still life on Earth. After a first being frightened of her, WALL-E and EVE, which stands for Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, eventually make a connection as he is amazed by her power and beauty and she is fond of his quirkiness and sweetness. However, things change once EVE finds a specimen and goes into shut down mode. Eventually, a ship arrives to take her away, and not wanting to let go of her, WALL-E catches on for a ride that will take him on a life-changing adventure.

Directed and co-written by Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo), WALL-E thugs at your heart and the relationship between the little trash compacting robot and EVE is one of the most tender to ever grace the screen even though they are animated characters. This is a family film, but it is more of a love story with a touch of science fiction adventure. The colors are not as vibrant in past Pixar films, which is a wise decision by Stanton to keep the film reflective of its mood and time period. Another commendable choice was to not shy away from long durations without any dialogue. The film itself has hardly any dialogue at all, but the first 45 minutes only has snippets of words stated, mostly of WALL-E and EVE saying their names to one another, or the singing from WALL-E’s Hello Dolly! video. There has not been such a lovable non-verbal character to grace the screen since R2D2 or E.T., the body language and reactions of WALL-E are so simply precise in his character’s intentions and development. One choice that did not seem to parallel in the film is the use of Fred Willard as a spokesperson for the company BnL (Buy ‘n’ Large), in which he like the Hello Dolly! film are seen as live action, but once WALL-E meets humans, they are Pixar animated. Perhaps Stanton was going for the differences in time duration.

The scenes between WALL-E and EVE are precious in nature, including a beautiful dance sequence in space that is both enthralling to look at and touching. It is really surprising how well this film works as a love story and a family film. However, Pixar has been amazing all of us for years and probably will not stop surprising us for years to come. WALL-E is a true gem.