WALL·E is not what you think. Yes, it’s a Pixar film. Yes, it’s about the last robot on Earth. Yes, there’s hardly any dialogue for the first 30 or so minutes. But to focus on those attributes is to sell the film short.
At its core — like most Pixar films — WALL·E is a love story, and it may be the most simple, yet compelling love story Pixar, or any other animation studio, has ever told.
The premise behind the film involves WALL·E, one of many robots left to pick up trash on Earth’s surface (WALL·E stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class). At the film’s open, WALL·E appears to be the only robot left as he goes about his trash-reducing mission.
What follows is one part love story, one part social commentary, and one part animated adventure. Without divulging too much plot: The film involves only a few basic characters other than WALL·E. There’s the ghastly looking EVE, who lands on earth and begins scanning the surface. Then there’s the few humans featured, most notably Jeff Garlin’s (Strange Wilderness) character, who has the least lines ever of any top-billed actor in a Pixar film.
With WALL·E, Pixar taking a risk. It defies summer blockbuster or even modern animated conventions. For one, WALL·E is much darker than what we’ve come to expect from Pixar – writer and director Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) succeeds in plumbing the depths of modern society. Although Stanton came up with the idea for his social commentary before Pixar developed the original Toy Story, the problems he addresses are more prevalent today than they ever have been.
Stanton’s commentary works because he doesn’t beat you over the head with it. You can take the ideas he’s presenting to you as is – they fit just as well in the context of the story and an imagined future. If you don’t want to take his ideas as a reflection of society, you don’t have to.
And that’s what makes WALL·E so compelling. Stanton is able to interweave his dark and somewhat depressing look at the future with such a vibrant love story.
WALL·E never utters more than a few sentences worth of dialogue – he communicates by saying his name and with beeps, but he can say a few words – yet you care about him more than any protagonist in recent history. WALL·E’s a robot, but he has a heart, and he’s more human than most human characters you’ll find in other films this summer.
He wins you over through his expressions and his movements, painstakingly captured by the ever-reliable Pixar team. Sure he has an errie similarity to E.T., both in appearance (big head, scrawny arms) and voice, but he easily enters the Disney and Pixar families as one of the companies’ most intriguing characters.
In many ways, WALL·E seems like a nod to the past, with archival footage of 1969 musical Hello Dolly! as part of the narrative. The film also calls to memory Disney’s Fantasia, another film to feature minimal dialogue, letting the character’s actions tell the story.
Visually, the film is stunning. By now, no one can question Pixar’s ability to blur the lines between reality and animation. The lush, intergalactic landscapes in the opening 30 minutes showcase just how far Pixar’s animation team has come from the simple cowboy and spaceman in a child’s toy box.
WALL·E is the kind of film that transcends age – simple, subtle and truly made for everyone to enjoy. What will be most interesting is if the film garners any Oscar consideration past the animated category – it may not, but it certainly deserves it.
Traditionally, America has had trouble digesting animated movies as any kind of serious cinema. But a film as inspiring as WALL·E is destined to have a shelf life far beyond the children’s section, neatly filed somewhere between Charlie Chaplin and Stanley Kubrick – a fitting testament to the lighter and darker sides of human, and robot, kind.
rudi.greenberg@gmail.com
RATING: 4 1/2 out of 5 Stars
