Earth in the year 2775. A post-apocalyptic haze hangs over a city, a doom-and-gloom view of earth, as I imagine it will be if mankind doesn’t check its wasteful ways. And Wall•E, a Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-Class, is the last robot on earth, going about his task assigned some 700 years earlier – to gather trash, compact it into cubes and stack them into towering piles that compete with skyscrapers and put a Manhattan garbage strike to shame.
It seems the gluttonous, nary-do-care ways of mankind have made the earth unihabitable, and so all humans have been shipped off – to space.
Yes, it’s Pixar’s first animated feature set in space and it launched in theaters on June 27. Taking cues from the greatest sci-fi thrillers and chick-flicks, Apple technology, and the biggest moral challenge facing civilization – saving the planet – Wall•E is an instant classic, a charming love story (between robots, no less) and the best Pixar film to date.
The first 40 minutes of the movie are almost free of dialogue. Instead, the winsome and soulful Wall•E, and his newfound friend and love interest, EVE – a sleek white droid designed like an Apple component that’s sent to earth with a classified directive – communicate via human-like beeps and whistles that are both charming and effective. An homage to sound designer Ben Burtt.
Expressing an adorable and very real human-side, Wall•E carries a cooler where he stores “keepers” – knick-knacks like a Rubik’s cube, pudgy gnomes and Christmas lights – that adorn his storage “studio” in the bowels of an industrial tractor and allow him some connection with humanity. His only companion is a pet cockroach (yeah, he survived along with the Twinkies) and a videotape of Hello, Dolly! which he watches over and over, fascinated with the music and human hand-holding. His loneliness is palpable, but when EVE arrives, it’s love at first sight. Well, once they’ve established they’re not a danger to one another. EVE, a career woman with a mission, is not a gal you mess with: she shoots not from the hip, but from her arm – blasts that compete with any guided-missile launcher.
When Wall•E discovers a living, green plant among the ruin and rubble, his earthbound existence changes dramatically. He and EVE end up on a spacecraft, where more animated cinematic treasures await us. Onboard, we realize that mankind didn’t colonize other planets when they left earth. They simply drift around on the spaceship Axiom, a behemoth vessel with the capacity of the entire Cunard Cruise Line. These corpulent humans clearly haven’t had any physical activity since they left earth 700 years earlier. They glide about on hovering lounge chairs (think mechanical scooters without wheels), eat “food in a cup” and rely on robots to do everything. The Captain (voice of Jeff Garlin), in fact, is so unaware of what Earth is really like that he imagines a place where pizza crops grow. And walking? These bulbous people don’t even have discernable joints! Though there is an endearing “save the day” moment when the Captain is forced to walk (like a baby taking its first steps) to save his ship from Autopilot, a robot that has started a mutiny onboard.
Wall•E and EVE aren’t the only robots in this amazing piece of cinematic art. The spaceship is teeming with mechanical ‘bots of every size and whimsical shape, including a loony bin of “droids gone awry”.
It’s onboard the Axiom that Pixar’s devotion to storytelling really shines through. Wall•E and EVE are torn apart and brought back together numerous times; it’s a boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-back story that competes with the best romances and action-thrillers. With a nod to the silent comedies of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, the story flies with the greatest of ease. It’s an unbridled, exhilarating, emotional and even downright suspenseful voyage. Teeming with sublime details only Pixar is capable of pulling off, Wall•E is also fully loaded with jokes. Not gags, but subtle references to all things human. My favorite was the classic Mac boot-up sound we hear whenever Wall•E powers up. Plus, he holds his reflective device up to his face (he’s solar powered) in a gesture I’ve seen hundreds of times from human lizards in their poolside lounge chairs.
Wall•E is an intergalactic love story and sci-fi wonder. I saw Wall•E with family members who ranged in age from 78 to 8, and it was a high-flying, loop-dee-loop ride for all. The adult belly laughs very nearly drown out the kids’ falsetto sniggering. You’ll most likely leave the theater pondering the inconvenient truths in the message (and while you’re trashing mother earth, keep in mind that the space shuttle only seats six). It’s no surprise that the company who made us love the likes of a fish and a rat could make us believe in robot love. With Pixar, the unlikely becomes likely, the bizarre cute, and the unthinkable becomes delightfully real. Pixar will have a hard time topping the awe-inspiring imagination and technical innovation of Wall•E, but if anyone can do it, they can.
By Sara Lynn White
The opinions expressed in this review do not necessarily represent the opinions of Audience Alliance Motion Picture Studios.
