WALL-E is a 2008 Disney Pixar family film that takes place some time in the future.  It stars Ben Burtt as WALL-E, Elissa Knight as EVE, Jeff Garlin as the Captain, John Ratzenberger as John, and Sigourney Weaver as the ship’s computer.  The producer is Jim Morris (Jumanji) and the director is Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo).

The story begins several hundred years in the future.  The world is overrun with garbage and the humans have gone to live in automated luxury resort spaceships until the WALL-E units can clean up Earth.  The plan to remove the trash was abandoned and all the units except one were shut down.  This robot remained on Earth to continue his job, unaware of the massive shut down.  He survives hundreds of years until one day a ship carrying a robot designed to find plant life lands near his home.  WALL-E falls in love with the EVE robot at first sight.  She is, at first, hostile towards the little compactor robot but soon grows to care about him.  When a sandstorm forces them to take cover in WALL-E’s home, he shows EVE a little seedling plant that he had found just before she arrived.  She takes the plant and stores it in her body while her ship comes to pick her up.  Until that time, she is deactivated.  WALL-E doesn’t realize what’s happened and tries everything to reactivate her.  Finally, her ship returns and takes her back with WALL-E holding on for dear life.  The ship travels through space until it comes upon a resort spaceship known as Axiom, where all the humans now live.  EVE, still inactive as WALL-E stays by her side, is transported to the captain’s quarters where she will show the plant to him, thus proving that the Earth has now become habitable for humans again.  But the Autopilot had the plant removed from the female robot and was about to destroy it when WALL-E and EVE, now fully functional, try to intervene.  They need to return it to the captain so he can tell the people that it’s safe to go home.  The Autopilot, however, has other plans.  He wants to remain in space and continue to have total control over the huge ship as the captain, like all the other humans, is morbidly obese due to hundreds of years living in microgravity.

WALL-E is a little robot you can’t help but love.  Before EVE arrived, he lived a lonely life of compacting trash and stacking it into piles that became skyscrapers.  His only friend was a cricket that followed him around.  But we didn’t see him as unhappy.  In fact, he seemed quite content with the work he did and the life he led, collecting certain treasures from the garbage he sorted through, most notably a tape of the “Hello, Dolly” theme song that he often listened to.  WALL-E had survived hundreds of years by salvaging parts he needed from other nonfunctional WALL-E units he found and, being a solar-powered robot, always had an abundant source of energy.  He was happy living the simple life partly because that’s all he had known.

Although there isn’t much dialogue in the first part of the film, the viewers don’t miss what’s going on and what the characters are feeling.  They can tell WALL-E is happy by what he does and how he carries himself.  He doesn’t have to speak much.  When EVE comes, the only words spoken are when she and WALL-E are introducing themselves.  We can tell she likes him because of the laugh she has when the little robot does something silly.  WALL-E certainly takes a liking to EVE due to the fact that he keeps trying to hold her hand throughout the film, just as he saw two lovers holding hands on an old tape he found.  Also, when the little robot is accidentally sent away in the self-destructing capsule, she goes after him right away and shows sadness when she thinks her friend is destroyed.  She is obviously happy when she sees WALL-E has survived and that he still has the plant.

To wrap, WALL-E is an inspiring and romantic story that will keep your attention whether you’re young or old.