Pixar Hits Another Home Run: A Review of Wall*E

The entire earth is empty. As the camera pans in on the dark brown planet we see a curtain of satellites, all of them dead, so cluttering the skies that they almost form a shield. Then, as we move through those, the camera pans along a barren and sad landscape, scorched brown and we see what looks like skyscrapers in the distance. Before long, we realize these are not skyscrapers, but huge mounds of garbage compressed into cubes, each of them stacked higher than the highest of the crumblin skyscrapers.

This is the earth of Pixar's latest wonder "Wall*E." The titular character is a box on treads with spindly arms and giant eyes the size of binoculars. He is the only moving thing left on a planet that has been abandoned by humans because the pollution and garbage has gotten so bad the only choice humanity had was to board giant space cruiseships and head far way. The Big 'N Large company, which actually controls the entire planet, has promised to use various WALL*E robots to clean up the place while the humans are gone. The problem? The job is too big and only one robot remains.

Wall*E is a wonder of a movie. He is a wonder of animation. Completely without an actual face or vocalizations, this animated robot harkens back to the greatest of silent film starts like Keaton or Chaplin. His only friend is a cockroach, yes, a cockroach, and Pixar somehow manages to make even the most vile of creatures cute in this movie.

Wall*E does what he was programmed to do. Each morning he leaves his shelter and gathers garbage into his stomach area. He then compresses the garbage into a cube and spits it back out. Then, he dutifully grabs the cube and carries it to his latest skyscraper, traversing up the sides on a twisting path he has created. He gathers things in the piles of garbage that he finds interesting: a light bulb, a Rubik's Cube, a tape of "Hello Dolly." He does his job, but he looks, with his giant eyes, towards the sky and the few brief glimpses of starlight that filter through the breaks in the pollution clouds.

Then, one day, a giant glistening spaceship arrives and deposits a sleak, floating white, bullet-shaped robot named EVA. It is her job to search the planet looking for proof that it is capable of sustaining photosynthesis, or plantlife, again. Wall*E is in love and he will now do anything to be with EVA and that means holding on to the outside of a spaceship when EVA has to make the trek back to her home, which is a giant space cruiseship named Axiom. It is here that humanity lives, communicating through holographic screens that hover in front of their faces but never actually touching and eating their food through straws. The centuries in space have made their bones degenerate and their centuries of not walking, but hovering, have turned them into blobby, fat and lazy things completely unaware of what is going on around them. That is, until EVA and Wall*E shows up with proof that Earth is ready for their return.

Pixar is an amazing place. Their movie "Finding Nemo" I firmly believe is a modern animation classic. I believe that fifty years from now it will be mentioned in the same breath as other animated classics like "Snow White." In fact, it may already be named in the same breath as other Disney classics. I, personally, loved the movie "The Incredibles." "Wall*E" is not quite the classic I think "Nemo" is, but it is a wonder to behold.

The movie manages to be absolutely touching. I found myself completely caught up in this wonderful story of little robot who had fallen in love. The fact that they were robots allowed them to have wondrous scenes you couldn't have with humans. For example, the beautiful scene of Wall*E clinging to the outside of the spaceship as it journeys toward the Axiom. Other movies have attempted to show the wonders of outer-space, but none made me gasp the way "Wall*E" did when he sees a swirling galaxy or reaches out to touch the space dust of a nearby planet. Or the wondrous scene as EVA and Wall*E dance with one another outside the space cruiser. EVA has her own propulsion system, but Wall*E uses a fire extinguisher and they fly and swoop and dance with one another in a scene as romantic as any live action between humans, perhaps more so.

There are plenty of scenes of great humor as well. There are also the signature action scenes that Pixar is known for. The animation is first-rate,as you would expect from Pixar who has managed to make monsters, rats and cars all loveable and relatable. The story is fun, interesting and won't bore the little kids while mom and dad hold hands and make goo-goo eyes at each other over the romantic parts.

"Wall*E" may not be the greatest movie ever, but I can easily see it being listed among the best movies of 2008.