Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

WALL●E

(2008)

What can I say? This is currently getting an astronomical 93% at Metacritic (lowest score: 70), 97% at Rotten Tomatoes. There are essentially no dissenting voices. And everything they say is true. It’s an awesome movie, and one that will make you feel good instead of just a bit exhausted. The story is simple enough. WALL●E is a trash compactor, still functioning at the task of cleaning up the Himalayas of trash that forced humans to abandon Earth for a giant space colony 800 or so years ago. He collects odd treasures, like an old videotape of Hello Dolly, which shows a lonely robot what it might be like to love, and to dance, with the musical numbers “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” and “It Only Takes a Moment.” This part of the movie is essentially silent, though rich in sounds. No dialogue.

A ship from the colony pays a visit, looking for life. If it finds life, the humans can come back. WALL●E falls in robotic love with the new, high-tech probe robot, EVE, and follows her back to the colony, where adventures ensue. Humans have devolved into amoebic blobs, the ultimate couch potatoes whose couches float from place to place, endlessly consuming, endlessly watching 3D screens that hover in front of them. This stuff is very funny. No more plot points are necessary here. See it and enjoy it for yourself. This movie is so dense with flabbergasting detail that I know I’ll want to see it many times, because you’ll see more on each viewing.

My review of Ratatouille turned out to be essentially a review of Pixar Studios, so I made sure to actually say something about this movie. But again, in my mind the big story is still Pixar. Has any studio, ever, had such a string of mega-hits, without a single stinker? Without even a single mediocre movie? (Maybe Walt Disney in his prime.) And not just hits—because I’ve seen some “hits” that really stunk up the theater, that would appeal only to fanboys and troglodytes (as if there was a difference)—but real stories that move and affect you, that are really worth your time. That they will be visually stunning is a given; any fool with a computer can now produce snazzy visuals, although Pixar is still the leader in CGI design. But so many of them are just sound and fury and no soul, just jokes and frenetic action. There is action aplenty in any Pixar film, but it all flows from the story. The story! John Lasseter has said that, over and over. Don’t even start until you have nailed the story. And they have always done so. They have never produced a sequel simply because the first one made money; first you must have a story to justify it. (And Toy Story 2was wonderful, and I have no doubt at all that Toy Story 3, scheduled for 2010, will also be wonderful.)

A lot of critics have pointed out that WALL●E was quite a risk, in that the first half is a silent movie. (The creators studied the great silent comics, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, and it shows!) Would kids dig it? I don’t know if the verdict is in on that, but to my mind, it would take a really stupid kid not to love it. … on the other hand, we are raising a lot of kids with 2-second attention spans, who aren’t happy unless something blows up every three seconds. We’ll see. What I’m really waiting to see is the next Pixar film, due next summer, which sounds like a really risky one. It’s called Up, and concerns the adventures of a 78-year-old man and an 8-year-old boy. Will kids watch a movie about an old fart? I know I will. Oh, by the way, after WALL●E, all the new Pixar films will be in 3D! I can hardly wait!

WALL●E (2008) (Second review) This has an astronomical 93% at Metacritic (lowest score: 70), 97% at Rotten Tomatoes. There are essentially no dissenting voices. And everything they say is true. It’s an awesome movie, and one that will make you feel good instead of just a bit exhausted. The story is simple enough. WALL●E is a trash compactor, still functioning at the task of cleaning up the Himalayas of trash that forced humans to abandon Earth for a giant space colony 700 years ago. He collects odd treasures, like an old videotape of Hello Dolly, which shows a lonely robot what it might be like to love, and to dance, with the musical numbers “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” and “It Only Takes a Moment.” This part of the movie is essentially silent, though rich in sounds. No dialogue.

A ship from the colony pays a visit, looking for life. If it finds life, the humans can come back. WALL●E falls in robotic love with the new, high-tech probe robot, EVE, and follows her back to the colony, where adventures ensue. Humans have devolved into amoebic blobs, the ultimate couch potatoes whose couches float from place to place, endlessly consuming, endlessly watching 3D screens that hover in front of them. This stuff is very funny. No more plot points are necessary here. See it and enjoy it for yourself. This movie is so dense with flabbergasting detail that I know I’ll want to see it many times, because you’ll see more on each viewing.

Has any studio, ever, had such a string of mega-hits, without a single stinker, as Pixar? Without even a single mediocre movie? And not just hits—because I’ve seen some “hits” that really stunk up the theater, that would appeal only to fanboys and troglodytes (as if there was a difference)—but real stories that move and affect you, that are really worth your time. That they will be visually stunning is a given; any fool with a computer can now produce snazzy visuals, although Pixar is still the leader in CGI design. But so many of them are just sound and fury and no soul, just jokes and frenetic action. There is action aplenty in any Pixar film, but it all flows from the story. The story! John Lasseter has said that, over and over. Don’t even start until you have nailed the story. And they have always done so.

A lot of critics have pointed out that WALL●Ewas quite a risk, in that the first half is a silent movie. (The creators studied the great silent comics, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, and it shows!) Would kids dig it? To my mind, it would take a really stupid kid not to love it. … on the other hand, we are raising a lot of kids with 2-second attention spans, who aren’t happy unless something blows up every three seconds. But no worries. Everybodyloved this film, including kids.