Wall-E (2008)

I have never been a die hard Pixar fan, sure their movies like Toy Story, The Incredibles, and Rattatouille have been pretty good (especially compared to the rest of the children movies out there), but they haven’t been masterpieces like some people make them out to be.  That could be one of the reasons why I came out of Wall-E completely blown away.  This film has loveable characters, a thrilling plot, beautiful animations, and one of the best love stories I have seen in a long time at its core.

We enter the film seeing an earth 700 years in the future, where sky scrapers of trash cover the surface.  Humans have left earth temporarily while millions of “Wall-Es”, which are trash compacting robots, clean up the mess.  For an unknown reason, the mission failed and all the robots got shut down after a short time, except our hero (voiced by Ben Burtt), who was been wondering around for 700 years in the loneliest conditions imaginable.  Wall-E is curious, innocent, and one of the cutest characters to date.  The sudden arrival of another, more advanced but equally loveable female robot Eve (voiced by Elissa Knight) sets the plot into motion, as Wall-E follows her (literally) across the galaxy in a heroic tale to leading ultimately to humanities salvation.

Director Andrew Stanton’s previous film, Finding Nemo, illustrated Stanton’s incredible ability to create the most loveable characters that audiences can immediately connect with, and it continues in Wall-E, but this time he does it without words.  The movie itself has fairly little dialogue, but Wall-E and Eve are very successful in grabbing the audience’s attention right off the bat.  The plot then begins to drive the movie, and we are taken on a gripping adventure through space, and that is all I can say because I don’t want to spoil the movie.  The love story between Wall-E and Eve is the main focus of the film, and it is brilliant.  It is the most genuine, touching, and surprisingly realistic (especially since it is between two robots) love story I have seen in a long time.

The lack of dialogue in this movie is not a flaw.  On the contrary, it is what sets this film apart, because Stanton is able to tell such an incredible story with so few words through brilliant visuals and a magical score.   Vibrant colors and smooth animations help bring the extraordinary futuristic scenery to life, which is expected from Pixar.  The score of the film, however, is unlike anything I have heard in a Pixar movie before.  It is amazing, and is brought to the center of the movie, instead of just being background noises.  The music is one of the best parts of the film, and is capped off by a great original song by Peter Gabriel.

The only flaws I can see in this movie is that it gets a tiny bit slow at about the 40 minute mark, but the story picks back up in no time.  Also some people might be put off by the seemingly “Green” message in the movie, but there isn’t much.  It is quite clear that Stanton’s main focus and theme for the film is the love story, and it is.

Overall Wall-E is not just the best animated movies, but it is also one of the best films I have ever seen.  I highly recommend this movie to anyone, whether you be a child or an adult, you shouldn’t miss this.

9.5/10

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