‘Wall-E’ Review
Wall-E (U)
Director: Andrew Stanton
Cast: Ben Burtt, Sigourney Weaver, Jeff Garlin, Kathy Najimy
Running Time: 103 minutes
How do Pixar do it? They just keep raising that bar higher and higher. It’s hard to say this is the best Pixar film to date as that’s like asking which one is your favourite child?
I thought that Wall.E was going to be an amazing film, but never this good.
It’s been 700 years since humans left the inhabitable earth on a giant spaceship called the Axiom, where every human now lives and does nothing…..literally.
For the first 40 minutes or so of the film, there are no dialogue parts, apart from the odd robot sounds, but this really adds to the cuteness and love-ability of Wall.E. He has a pet cockroach that goes everywhere with him during his day of tidying the mess left on earth by humans, and stacks it into skyscraper sized piles.
Every night he goes home to watch ‘Hello Dolly’. It’s from seeing Wall.E’s attitude when watching the film, that you realise just how lonely he is and how much he wants to be with someone.
The main story starts when EVE’s spaceship touches down on Earth. She has been sent to Earth to try and find sustainable life so that humans can one day come back to live.
Wall.E falls for her straight away and is continuously trying to impress EVE but to no avail. It’s when he takes her home that you see a connection between them. There are some brilliant moments between the two. But just when they start to hit it off, Wall.E shows EVE a plant that he’d put in a boot, and this causes EVE to take the plant and shutdown awaiting her ship to pick her back up.
The ship arrives to take EVE back to the Axiom, but Wall.E doesn’t want to lose her, so decides to hitch a ride clinging onto the side of the spaceship so that he can be with EVE.
On getting back to the Axiom is the first time that we see the humans, who have become fat, lazy slobs and move around on hover chairs and never walk anywhere.
They all have little screens in front of their faces advertising the latest liquid lunch, communicating with each other or finding out which coloured jump suits are in fashion. It’s when EVE takes the plant to the ships captain that he realises that he has to take humans back to earth, as there is a chance for a new life. But he must first defeat the A.I that runs the ship, and take back control and return the human race back to their home world.
This core of the film is a gorgeous love story between the last robot on earth, Wall.E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) and EVE (Extra-Terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator).
His persistence with trying to be with EVE is endearing, and one of the best scenes of the film is when Wall.E is chasing EVE through space with a fire extinguisher. It really is a beautiful and touching moment.
You really fall for the characters and how Pixar have made robots seem more human than the humans is nothing short of amazing. Most of the time, you just want to pick Wall.E up and give him a huge hug because he is that loveable. There are some great moments with other robots on board the Axiom, including a smaller robot that has an obsession with cleaning.
The Captain of the Axiom is a great character, who on seeing the plant, falls in love with Earth and finds out everything he can about it and realises what he must do.
The magic of Pixar is ever present through the whole of this film, and will have you smiling from start to finish. There are the usual slapstick moments throughout that will keep the kids happy and entertained, but there are definitely more things in here for grown ups.
Pixar have really launched a huge attack on corporate greed, and it’s done brilliantly. It shows all humans care about are the materialistic things that they have to have had yesterday and how nobody realises what’s in front of them anymore. Also this is the first time that Pixar have used live action footage in their films. It’s only a small amount but it’s added in well.
Words cannot describe how much I loved this film. I just can’t do it justice by writing about it. You really have to go and see just how magical this really is. Just pure genius!
5 out of 5
Ender
i went to see it and it was pretty good, i believe that if the human race doesn’t do something about the pollution this could really happen.
juzten
I have to agree, this movie was awesome! From what i heard it’s the last movie of it’s type, the rest are going to be 3D I think? Anyone know anything about it?
I’ve not seen this movie yet, but am looking foward to it as I’m a big fan of the Pixar films, though curiously I’ve not seen Ratatoille yet - it doesn’t seem to have captured my attention as much as other Pixar films.
@Christopher Robin - I hadn’t heard about that, but just imagine seeing a Pixar film in 3D, how cool would that be?
Toy Story 3 is to be the 1st 3D pixar film released.
Although saying it’s ‘the 1st’, they are re-releasing Toy Story 1&2 in 3D before the release of Toy Story 3 in 2010. I imagine it being a lot like Beowulf was in 3D.
That didn’t have loads of things coming out of the screen at you, but made you feel like you were in the scene with the characters as it gave loads of depth to the scenes!!