Wall•E Review

Who knew the best big-screen love story in years would actually play out between two robots with almost no dialogue?

We keep waiting for Pixar to stumble and produce a less than excellent film and — well, we're all still waiting.

(I'd actually argue "Cars" could be seen as a minor stumble, at least quality wise. Then again, that movie IS cute and really just subpar only according to Pixar standards. Also any animated movie that makes $460 million worldwide is automatically not a stumble.)

Needless to say, "Wall•E" carries on Pixar's winning streak and instantly becomes one of the best movies of the year.

The story is set several hundred years in the future. An overly contaminated Earth has been abandoned in favor of space by humans. The only living things left appear to be a cockroach and Wall•E, a trash-collecting robot whose name stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth Class.

Though Wall•E's not technically a living being, he has picked up human traits during his mostly solitary time on Earth (we're not sure exactly how long he's been around). The early scenes with Wall•E dutifully compacting trash and collecting trinkets for his, um, apartment do an excellent job of establishing the character's curious, kind and friendly personality and the loneliness he feels. The mostly dialogue-free sequence is also a master class in how to tell a story through music and (stunning) visuals.

Wall•E eventually gets some company when a sleeker robot we come to know as EVE lands on the planet. Without giving too much away, Wall•E and EVE end up embarking on an adventure which affects all of humanity and the entire planet — yet the coolest thing about the movie is that stuff hardly matters.

The real attraction is the love story between Wall•E and EVE. The animators do a tremendous job in basically showing us how two robots can possibly fall in love. I love the way they animate Wall•E and EVE's eyes, even though EVE's eyes are nothing more than blue lights. They also show the characters connecting through simple gestures humans take for granted, like holding hands.

Most importantly, the movie makes us care for the bond between the two by, you know, spending an almost unheard-of amount of time on developing the characters and allowing the audience to get to know them. There's no sassy best friend, or disapproving parents or misunderstandings between the two, just their slow, growing affection for each other. We also get attached to them, as evidenced by the multitude of misty eyes in my packed theatre on Sunday.

By the way, I don't mean to sound like "Wall•E" is exactly "Love Story." Though Pixar specializes in making movies that appeal to everyone (including adults), this is still a kids' flick and thoroughly succeeds on that front.

The lead character is absolutely adorable, and his interaction with human products is good stuff. I also liked how trigger happy and overly abrasive EVE was before Wall•E softened her metallic heart.

The movie also includes some good satire about where humans are headed as a society (hint: we're getting lazier) and manages to slip in an environmental message without beating us over the head with it.

If I have one small critique is that, while there's nothing really wrong with the movie, it just didn't feel as special as some of Pixar's other efforts. Maybe it was because there's really no strong antagonist to overcome or (by design) not as many quotable lines or catchphrases, but as much as I liked this movie, I don't really see it holding a special place in my heart like "Toy Story", "Ratatouille" (my favorite movie from last year).

That's not to say this movie isn't wildly successful on its own merits. Here's hoping the Academy takes a real hard look at this one come Oscar season and doesn't stupidly automatically discount it because there's a "Best Animated Feature" Oscar (foreign films seem to have a slightly easier time in the more mainstream categories).

I think some people tend to forget animation is not a genre (like comedy, drama, horror), it's a medium by which you can tell any number of stories (like comedies, dramas and horror). Just because something is animation, doesn't automatically mean it's just a "kids' movie."

Is "Wall•E" a kids' movie? Yes. Is it also a beautiful love story that just happens to be animated? Yes! Am I going to stop asking and answering my own questions and just give this thing a grade already? Oh, alright.

Wall•E...A