Dr. Venkman Reviews: WALL-E
‘WALL-E' was a wonderfully charming Pixar film with cuteness built in all over the screen. I really liked this movie it really was different from any other Pixar film for the fact that there was hardly any dialogue in the movie. The story was told mostly by its wonderful visuals and expressions. The last film that tried this was the 2D animated film from DreamWorks called ‘Spirit' and it was good, but it just wasn't that interesting. WALL-E was interesting in everyway possible, story, characters, and visuals.
The first part of the film deals with WALL-E's daily activities in cleaning up the wasteland that earth had become. You have seen a lot of these activities in the movie trailers and film clips for the film. The underlying story for the film was actually kind of depressing. Earth was being over populated with trash so the people had to leave earth for a period of 5 years, while it was being cleaned by all the WALL-E robot units. The people left in these giant ships being advertised as living the good life. During this time these EVE robot units would be sent to earth to see if they could recover an type of life forms so that the people could go back. Well, 700 years later these people have evolved into fat blobs that have lost most of their bone structure. All of them floating around on these flying chair beds with a digital TV monitor in front of their faces at all times. It was really quite depressing to see how this race of humans from earth eventually turn into.
Now WALL-E ends up on one of these ships by following an EVE unit that he fell for while she was on earth looking for life. Once WALL-E is on the ship things get really crazy and it is where the main part of the story takes off. But in the process of WALL-E trying to be find EVE and his way around the ship he causes some big problems and at the same time makes some good things happen. For example he accidentally breaks a fat woman's TV screen, and all of a sudden she sees everything that is around her and notices that the ship actually has swimming pools. There is definitely an underling message that this movie is sending out.
I really don't have one favorite scene in the movie. Every scene that WALL-E and EVE shared together was amazing. For two animated CGI robots, there was some really great chemistry. I really came to like these two characters and wanted them to succeed.
Andrew Stanton who wrote and directed WALL-E did a pretty good job. He told a wonderfully visual story which is not an easy thing to do. I think it was a risky way to go about doing a kids movie, but they did it and it will be successful.
As good as the movie was, I don't think it is Pixars best film. I took my kids to see this movie one of them is 3 years old. She loves the Pixar movies and usually gets glued to the screen when she watches them. This one didn't seem to hold her attention though. I also noticed it with other kids in the theater. WALL-E didn't have what it takes to get the kids into it. Maybe it will be a different story when it comes out on DVD.
WALL-E was a fun and entertaining film that I think adults will enjoy and understand more than the kids will. Whatever you decide to go see, remember to always enjoy your time at the movies!
-Dr. Venkman