Wall-E

Wall·E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)

****
USA

The title is an acronym for Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth class, and it refers to a lonely, diminutive cross between E.T. and Chaplin's Tramp, only ten times more adorable and a robot. For the most part, the Pixar team eschew dialogue, and with it the stale snark and pandering that plagues much of contemporary animation. Their film is as imaginative, melancholy-joyous and entrancing as anything since at least Toy Story 2, and what's more, in theatres at least, it is preceded by Presto, the most ingenious piece of animation (forgive all this hyperbole) since the Looney Tunes.

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WALL-E (2008)

You must have known WALL-E was going to be included here at some point. My all time fave Pixar film. I saw this a record, 11x at the theatre during that summer, and every time felt like the first. It really seems impossible to pick a *best* Pixar film, but WALL-E is perfection in its more pure-computer-animated form. How it said so much without much dialogue is an undeniable achievement. After THE INCREDIBLES, this is the second Pixar film unjustly shut out of an Oscar nomination for best picture.

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WALL•E

Basic Premise:

WALL•E is in charge of cleaning up the mess humans have made of Earth. Time has past and WALL•E is a little lonely. Enter EVE. She's new and improved and everything WALL•E ever dreamed of. However, she has a mission to fulfill and WALL•E is going to try his hardest to help her accomplish it.

Pixar Short:

HILARIOUS, as usual. It's about a magician and the rabbit he pulls out of his hat. The rabbit is hungry and won't behave during the performance until he gets fed.

I'm glad to see being taken over by Disney hasn't ruined Pixar's sense of humor.

Review:

This film is an ultra-cute public service announcement about the evils of pollution and sedentary lifestyles brought to you by the people of Macintosh.

Think I'm kidding? Go see it. Seriously. If you are in the mood for something feel good and cute with an extremely OVERT moral message (And when I say overt, I mean Captain Planet meets Ferngully overt.), then this is the movie for you. I warn you it is very, very cute.

I'm not saying being cute is a bad thing. But, people who don't like cute will be banging their head against a wall.

There were a few confused children (5-8yrs old) who were a little lost and felt the need to ask their parents what was going on in very loud voices. That tells me that this movie might be a little too subtle for younger audiences. There isn't any typical Disney singing (there are songs but they are mainstream classics) and there is very little talking, so a younger viewer might get bored with it.

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Recommendations: Star Trek (2009), Avatar, 300

D. Renee Bagby<br />
Building New Realms of Passion<br />
http://dreneebagby.com

Wall-E: Typical Pixar Unoriginalit-E

WALL-E’s basic story lacks originalit-E and conforms to the standard Disney Directive in saccharine condescending children’s fairy tales. WALL-E’s computer generated graphics are extraordinary though most characters are undefined, expressionless and dull.

This doesn’t measure up to the hand drawn animation or emotionally complex characters of Hayao Miyazaki: SPIRITED AWAY and MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO are the pinnacle of children’s fables even though Disney tried to cheapen them with awful American voice-acting. But this film has a few nice flourishes! Wall-E is a little garbage robot with a personality who, after 700 years alone, has broken his Directive but still goes about his tedious job of crushing trash into little squares. This view of a desolate future Earth is spectacular with trash towers scarping the sky. A beautifully sleek robot descends from the heavens and Wall-E is fascinated and quickly falls in love. The first half-hour has no dialogue except clips from HELLO, DOLLY!. The little droid learns about love from a terrible 20th Century musical: Fortunately he didn’t find a tape of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE or we’d have a completely different film!

The first half-hour is the saving grace: Wall-E may be man-made but he is a living autonomous sentient being…he really comes alive. The rest of the story is typical Pixar rubbish though it’s not piled as high as DreamWorks dreadful garbage. At least there are no smarmy pop culture references, idiotic celebrity cameos, or fart jokes. I particularly like Auto’s HAL-like eye constantly observing the captain. The obese and disgusting humans for some unknown reason decide to give up their life of luxury and ease for a bleak and dangerous Earth. The robots mutiny and adhere to their absolute directive and attempt to maintain the status quo. But underneath, the story remains focused upon the little love story (though too sweet and contrived) between two robots. Final Grade: (B-)

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Recommendations: The Birds, Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960), Funny Games

All reviews copyright Korova, Ltd. Visit Alex at his Home Theatre Blog, http://korovatheatrepresents.blogspot.com/

WALL·E

Somewhere right now, the people who made Kung Fu Panda are watching WALL·E and going, "FUCK! We were so close!"



Remember when I said that Kung Fu Panda stood a real chance to take the Oscar from Pixar this year? Yeah I'd like to retract that statement now. Wow, seriously wow. WALL·E is such a departure from anything Pixar as ever done before and I absolutely adore this film.



So the movie is about WALL·E, a waste collecting robot in a future where the Earth is so polluted, humans have left the planet until WALL·E finishes cleaning up all the garbage stuff. The years alone has made WALL·E evolve into a very peculiar character. He's fascinated with the garbage he finds and tried piecing together information through the things he comes through.



One day he meets this robot EVE (who looks like a vibrator for girls) who comes down to look for plant life and WALL·E falls in love. Through some funny circumstances, he finds himself inadvertently taken back to space with EVE and get's wrapped up in a plot bigger than  himself to save mankind.



WALL·E has gotta be the cutest Disney character they have ever made. The guy is just such a goofball of love, I want to own one so that I can squeeze the life out of it. And it's also an incredibly deep character and that says a lot since we never hear WALL·E speak. Everything we learn about him is through is body language, the tone of his beeps and his eyes. I can't respect Pixar enough for being able to do all that in one tiny character without even saying a goddam word.



And there is a lot more to this film than just WALL·E. The film is such a resemblance to the Utopian sci-fi movies from the 70's where it just blows you away with the magic and the ideas in the film which are so ahead of it's time. And there's a lot of subtext references to like EVE being the dove of Noah's Ark, WALL·E being a lot like Butades and other stuff that will just bore you but is like geekgasm to me.



And the CG is really good here. It's one of the most gritty style of animation as far as Pixar goes. It's almost a lost of innocence watching the apocalyptic world of  WALL·E. This is as close as animation can possibly get to the real thing without having that uncanny valley effect.



Remember the old Disney movies that just wows people with the sheer magic of the film, well WALL·E is the first one in a long time. When they can make a movie where the first hour has no dialog whatsoever and still get across so many emotion, character development and themes, you know that this was the work of geniuses.



The only thing that I disliked about the movie was it's overenthusiastic manner of cramming as much propaganda and lessons into it. The whole movie practically screams, "Stop polluting the planet, dumb ass." and "For God sakes please get off the couch and exercise." I wouldn't mind if the message came up a few times but it just got over preached to the point where it almost became annoying.


It's too bad Kung Fu Panda came out the same year this amazing film did to. Cause I really like Kung Fu Panda but, wow WALL·E completely blows that movie out of the park!

RATING: 9/10

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NicholasC

WALL•E

This movie isn’t environmental propaganda. It isn’t satire, either. Nor is it bleak. I feel I should start off my review with a quick précis of whatWALL•E isn’t because WALL•E’s been made to sound… arty. And anytime an animated movie sounds arty I start thinking of Belleville Rendezvous and I wonder: is it actually any good? Because Bellevillewasn’t good; it was bitter. It looked like the kind of nightmare Hieronymus Bosch might draw inspiration from and it played sloooooow, and frightening. WALL•E isn’t anything like Belleville Rendezvous. It’s more like Manhattan. It avoids satire because – against hope – it believes in people. It’s the most uplifting movie of the year, and the best date movie.

Far in the future, Earth has become uninhabitable. Long abandoned by mankind, the planet is now home to WALL•E, who is a robot. From what we gather, there were once many thousands (perhaps millions) of robots like WALL•E; built to try to clean-up the planet ready for Man’s return. But humankind has forgotten about Earth, and all other WALL•E-like robots have ceased to function; WALL•E is alone. To pass the time, WALL•E goes about his duties collected refuse and quashing it into cubes. He also collects little treasures he finds among the ash-heaps, including a video of the musical Hello Dolly!, which contains his favourite song. Life seems to equal never-ending work for WALL•E, until one day a strange space-craft lands on Earth – and with it: EVE, another robot. Here’s where a love story begins…

The first thirty minutes of WALL•E has no dialogue. We might as well get that out there at the start. There is that song WALL•E that likes, but WALL•E doesn’t speak. And yes, some people are going to say this is a bit too arty-a-move for a cartoon. But I don’t think Pixar (the studio that made WALL•E) ditched the dialogue for nothing. Who (for the sake of argument) could WALL•E speak to in the first half-hour? Besides, just because he doesn’t speak, it doesn’t follow that there’s no sound. On the contrary, WALL•E is a marvel of sound design. You’re almost more aware of how things sound without the distraction of listening to what’s said. WALL•E himself communicates the way R2D2 once did, with whoops and squeaks in place of nouns and verbs. His romance with EVE is handled almost entirely through the way each says the other’s name (Raymond Carver couldn’t have pared love down to anything sparer than that).

If you go to watch WALL•E as anything other than a love story; you go misinformed. All the best moments (the ones that knock accusations of satire and misanthropy on their ass) are about romance between two robots. Crazy as it sounds, I think WALL•E and EVE are the most heart-warming couple since Juno and Bleeker got together. Anyone who watches EVE watch her security tape… and who doesn’t cry – frankly, isn’t human. That goes double for the first kiss in space, and quadruple for the finale. I’ll grant you, perhaps, things do get a bit schmaltzy here and there. But the purpose of romance in WALL•E isn’t chocolate-box, it’s about heroism. Love in WALL•E requires bravery, self-sacrifice… It’s a means of reconnecting us with why humanity is worth saving. Because we’re dumb as rocks, but we’re also the people Tracy appealed to in Manhattan; the ones who just need to have faith that not everyone gets corrupted.

Manhattan is, I know, a fairly odd reference point for a Disney movie about a robot stranded on Earth 700 years in the future, but… You know the scene where Woody Allen tries to make a list of all the things that make life worth living? (Things he’d overlook if Mariel Hemingway hadn’t set him thinking). Well, that’s the scene WALL•E reminds me of. It’s about waking up to life. All the little treasures WALL•E plucks from the ashes – as tacky as they are – they’re like “the crabs at Sam Wo’s”: if they delight one person, if they make one person see more than waste and refuse in this world, there’s hope for us. Love stories aren’t about love, at their best; they’re about discovery. WALL•E is a success because you find yourself moved by machines.

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Wall E

The first hour of this amazing animated epic is pretty much a silent movie that reminded me of a Charlie Chaplin film. An animated film that can do that has to be very special. This is proof that kids are smart and they like challenging material and they don't always go for fast moving garbage. This movie is also very funny and breathtaking to look at and will probably become more special over time and after multiple viewings. The last half is not equally as masterful as the first but the use of music, the voice of Wall E and the look at the future is masterful and very entertaining. Pixar over the decades has been a wonderful gift to the movies. Bravo! and Encore!

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Vincent Snavely

WALL-E (2008)

BOTTOM LINE: Pixar have done it again, producing another fantastic, visually stunning computer animated film about a trash-compacting robot with a heart that kids (and adults) will love.

THE GOOD: Pixar Animation Studios has built a reputation for establishing the benchmark of quality for computer animated films; in watching "Wall-E", it's not hard to see why. Much thought and care and has gone in to the character design, story and visuals to create an incredible future world where humans have left Earth because they've turned it into a garbage dump and only trash compacting robot Wall-E is left over, dutifully going around doing his job. However, he's been doing it for so many centuries that he's developed a heart; he's lonely and yearns for company. His lonely world is changed when a visiting space ship deposits a probe called Eve on Earth. At first, Wall-E is frightened, and almost gets blown to pieces by Eve's arm gun (in a number of amusing scenes, Eve switches from sweet, sleek probe to gun-toting probe out to destroy in a second). Eventually, Wall-E convinces Eve he is no threat and starts to show her around his domain. When Wall-E shows her a plant he found, a series of events take place where the two end up back at the human space ship Axiom where the human race has been living for the past seven hundred years. Now with proof that life can grow on Earth again, the humans can return to Earth but not before the Axiom's autopilot tries to stop them in a fairly funny 2001-esque riff. The story is quite nice and cute, and the amazing thing is that director Andrew Stanton and his animators successfully convey a 90 minute-long story with virtually no dialogue. In the first half of the film with the two robots, everything is conveyed visually, and this is where the strength of the Pixar animators is on display: the character animation is first rate (as an example, Eve has a sleek, reflective design and throughout the film, even the detail of the reflections of her body is flawlessly rendered), the visuals on the wasteland of Earth are absolutely stunning (you'd think they were really filmed), and the sound is perfectly captured in the audio track. Of course, kudos has to go to the execution of the characters, with Wall-E in particular conveying a number of quirky character traits. There are also a number of nice touches as well such as the fact that humans have turned in to fat, lazy slobs who do not do anything except sit in hover chairs watching TV all day, allowing the computers to do their work. Wall-E is another strong film from Pixar which should not disappoint unless you're not in to this type of thing.

THE BAD: As good as this film is, there are a few minor points. Wall-E himself, although spectacularly realised and designed, bears more than a striking resemblance to another loveable character, E.T. Wall-E's head, both in design and movement, is very similar to E.T (albeit faster) and it might have been nice to try something different. The other minor point I would make is that the visuals seem more computer-animated in the second half of the film when Wall-E and Eve show up on the Axiom. The humans on the ship are computer generated and unfortunately the film also has some scenes featuring real humans so the basis of comparison is glaringly obvious, despite the fact that they have an explanation for the visual design of the humans in the film. Also, compared to the stunning visuals in the first half, the shots on the Axiom seem more like a cartoon.

RATING: 8/10

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Todd Murphy <br />
http://www.allaboutmovies.net

Moon Minis - WALL·E

Cutesy little robot doing clean-up jobs on an abandoned Earth in the future meets a new robot named EVE, travels to a luxury ship where all the humans went, and attempts to get the humans to re-inhabit the earth. Everything you've heard about this film is true - it's a fantastic trip for both child and adult, complete with themes that will get to the heart of either age group. Disney and Pixar know how to make cute; that much is apparent from the first bleeps and bloops out of WALL·E's mouth. But they also have crafted a truly enjoyable experience, touching on a lot of our world's problems. What will happen when technology gets out of hand? When we fill our landfills? When Earth is no longer inhabitable? Unfortunately, we'll have no cuddly WALL·E or EVE. We just have enormous problems we don't know how to deal with, and that is always lurking in the background of WALL·E's kid-friendly plot.

Don't discount WALL·E because of its cartoon-y facade. The themes present here, along with its incredible characterization of two robots without voices, is deserving of your time just as a live-action flick would be. In fact, WALL·E's probably smarter, and would do you and our society more good. Think of it as a wake-up call, and all coming from a film designed to make kids laugh and forget the troubles that they will soon be left with.

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Last updated: 2010-01-19 00:19:51 by user01

Wall-E

I am a sucker for feel-good movies. I love a movie where you are smiling when you come out of the theatre; you feel it is worth the somehow steep price of a movie ticket. This movie is one of those cases.

Any movie coming from Disney/Pixar is sure to be a quality film. Kudos to the creative team behind that studio for churning out another top-notch creation. Wall-E is the latest film from Disney/Pixar and arguably the best so far.

The film features the best animation ever: the colours are distinct, the textures of the robots distinguishable, and movement lifelike. Technological advancement in film making never ceases to astonish me.

It features a heart-warming story told without much dialogue. The writers have immense success in depicting the tale through facial expressions and gibberish intonation. It is amazing that the viewers can feel the emotions coming from a fictional robot that cannot talk. Comic scenes are also aplenty, and they are all genuinely amusing; it is good to know that the writers have not run out of good jokes.

If you want to see a film of high calibre, then definitely go watch the movie. You will not regret it.

I give this movie, 10 stars out of 10.

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Last updated: 2009-08-16 11:33:19 by edthehead

Wall-e

Pixar once again joins the summer line-up, this time with the release of its new film WALL-E. After seeing and despising Ratatouille last year, I held a strong hope in my heart that WALL-E would redeem my respect for Pixar. Although it wasn't exactly what I hoped it would be, WALL-E is, in my opinion, a huge step up from Ratatouille and has brought back the feeling of admiration I once held for this company. After an adorable and clever short entitled Presto, the feature film begins, introducing us to earth 800 years in the future. After years of neglect, humans have left the earth completely overridden with garbage. To try and remedy this situation, major corporation Buy N Large launches a plan to evacuate everybody on earth to outer space on a ship called Axiom while the mess behind them is cleaned. WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth class) is the small garbage collecting robot that has been charged with the task of cleaning up the disorder. Alone with the exception of a friendly cockroach, WALL-E spends his existence collecting trash, foraging for interesting toys, and watching Hello Dolly. One day while WALL-E is going through his usual motions, a space ship lands on earth and from it comes Eve, a sleek white robot that WALL-E falls for immediately. After a rocky first meeting, WALL-E starts showing Eve around his world, and even performs some dance moves that he picked up from Hello Dolly. When he shows her a small plant that he found, we discover that Eve was sent from the Axiom to find if life could once again be sustained on earth. This plant being proof, she returns to her ship and lifts off, unknowingly carrying WALL-E on the ships' back. Once on the Axiom, we see what humans have been reduced to, carrying out their lives on reclined seats having robots do anything and everything for them. Going deeper into the actual conflict of the film would be giving away the surprise, so I'm afraid I have to stop here.

Like I previously stated, WALL-E is a huge step up from Ratatouille. The main reasons I did not enjoy Ratatouille was due to lack of humor, heart, and enjoyable characters. WALL-E is chock full of all of those things, and more. The curious little robot WALL-E inspires laughter and warmth of the heart simply by being adorable. It seems almost ridiculous to think a box with eyes could be cute, but Pixar knows how to create characters that make an audience say "awwwwwwwww!" WALL-E's voice, provided by Ben Burtt, is comical in its own sense, as it relays an air of innocence mixed with whimsy. The timid and questioning nature of WALL-E is one that I think many children will relate too and enjoy watching. There is also a very endearing love story to appreciate in WALL-E that borders on almost irritatingly adorable. Although Eve is not a particularly interesting character, the way we see her playing off of WALL-E works to perfection. Later in the film when WALL-E boards the Axiom we meet the Captain of the ship, who was voiced by Jeff Garlin. The Captain is also a very amusing addition to the film as a representative of the rest of the people on the ship who have lost touch with the world and only know it from looking at their computer screens.

There is quite a bit of symbolism in WALL-E. Actually, they are not so much symbols as blatant messages that the filmmakers were trying to get us to acknowledge. Showing us an overweight population flowing through life on chairs, not even turning their heads to speak to other people is a bleak foreshadowing of what we have to look forward to if we carry on the way we are. It may sound preachy, but it doesn't make it any less true. To a more mature crowd, these symbols are obvious but for little children, I think this a really effective way to teach them to break the trend and not let laziness overtake their lives. The other messages that convey the fact that big businesses are evil and that neglect for the earth will lead to catastrophe are a bit played out, and I didn't feel as affected by them.

But so far I have only highlighted the positive aspects of WALL-E, and I have been dancing around a fact that is extremely important to mention. WALL-E is boring. Not the entire film, but a good majority of it is. Cute characters and beautiful animations can still not distract me from the fact that for almost all of the film, the only words spoken were "WALL-E" and "Eve". I'm sure it was the filmmakers intention to have us view this film as a work of art and appreciate the animations, and I did that. But just like I said in my Ratatouille review, animations DO NOT make a movie good. They HELP a movie be good, but they don't MAKE a movie good. You still need (or at least I still need) involving interactions and events to keep my eye. Otherwise your attention drifts and you have to make an effort to get back into it. I don't like to expend energy when I watch movies.

WALL-E runs at about 98 minutes, and is entertaining for the first 35 of those minutes. Watching WALL-E explore the trash covered world, picking up random objects and having fun with them made me laugh and kept me into it, and when Eve arrived I was happy to see an interaction between characters. But once WALL-E enters space, the movie becomes an artsy film and relies heavily on its animations. While I was watching it, I felt like I was watching a short film that had been extended to be a full length feature. As a matter of fact, the short film that played before WALL-E, entitled Presto, was just as entertaining as the film itself. It was funny, cute, and clever: 3 things I want from Pixar. In the 3 minutes that the short ran, I laughed out loud more times consecutively than I did for WALL-E, which only gave me intermittent laughs. WALL-E isn't a total loss, as it does provide amusement for some time, its' effects are magnificent, and it sends an excellent message to children about laziness. On a scale of Ratatouille to Toy Story, WALL-E is about A Bug's Life. In other words, my rating (6/10)

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Wall-E

If you were to tell me that I was going to have to sit through a good 30 minutes of no dialogue at the beginning of this film before I saw it, more than likely I would have told you that you were crazy and wouldn’t have given it the time of day. However, the sight gags are done so well that you don’t even notice the lack of dialogue for most of the film.
Wall-E seems like a mixture of E.T., Johnny 5, and a trash compactor. He very well may be, but one thing is clear. As raggedy looking as he is, the little guy has a big heart and the audience really finds themselves caring for him, which is odd since he doesn’t do much more than mutter a line here and there. Wall-E stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class.
I remember one guy that reviewed this film saying that Eve looked like a female sex toy. That cracked me up, but it is true. Just like any other female, she has a couple of mood swings in the film. Seeing as how she has this really powerful gun and an itchy trigger finger, its not good to mess with her emotions. EVE stands for Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator.
As cute as this film is, it takes a stance at the state of our society. It’s quite obvious that the Buy n Large is based on Wal Mart and the people on the Axiom are what we will all look like if we keep up with this sedentary lifestyle we’ve grown accustomed to. Sad, but true.
The opening scene where the trash is piled up to look like buildings is breathtaking, both in a good and bad way. Good in that someone took the time to design and execute that. Bad in that you realize its trash.
M-O is another cute robot in the film, but his role is so small that he isn’t even really mentioned unless you watch it. He should be getting more publicity, though.
Wall-E just won the Oscar for Best Animated Picture, so you know if it was good enough for the old stuck up people that vote for the awards to vote for it, then it has to be worth it, right? I liked this film, but it’s not as good as The Incredibles or other Pixar films in terms of my favorite. I have it ranked between the Toy Story films. Still, this is very well animated, written, and executed. If you haven’t seen it yet, what are you waiting for?

http://thankyounetflix.wordpress.com

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wall.e

this movie, is the the most costly movie thus far from Pixar and Disney.
Pixar is really good at story telling. Starting from Toy Story withtheir first collaboration with Disney, to a proctective father of aclownfish, to a rat with passion to cook. there is no doubt, theproducers at disney are fast becoming the best storytellers of ourtime. Now comes, pure visual, no dialogue. Its back to the charliechaplin days, animated style.
it brings back a certain sense of nostalgia even with its futuristicplot. Its a simple plot. A curious lonely robot meets a new robot, EVE.But its the little things that wall.e does for EVE and hisunconditional love for someone it(i'm assuming its a HE) doesn't reallyknow, but feels a great sense of attraction too. its child likeinnocence, that is really a pleasure to see. Yes, it robotic love, itsweird, but you won't see them as robots anyhow.
i have to say this has got to be disney's most daring take, in bringingin an animated feature with no dialogue. where "body" language plays abig part. However, i have to admit, there are times i thought i waswatching a bunch of Pokemons talking to each other. Yes, its more ofless the same concept. hahha, but i think by saying that, im dilutingthe great efforts of the Pixar animators.
all in all. i really loved it. Its very sweet. Like all children'smovie, all well ends well. so yea. I like the ending. Its been a longtime since i've seen a sweet movie like this.
9/10 i won't give it perfect. because i'm sure there's better. butits close to perfect, On par to the dark knight for this year's summermovies. Summer is going to be over. And as i've expected, Augustdoesn't disappoint

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