Not Your Ordinar-E Trash Compactor - 'WALL-E' Review...

Posted on June 27, 2008 - 9:01pm by michael For the last ten years or so, computer animated films have reached such a level of realism and three-dimensional clarity that it is almost a given in new animated feature films. Still, WALL-E presents such a brilliantly animated futuristic world that it's dire implications are almost overshadowed by the textured reality of it all. The movie takes place 700 years in the future, and the blue planet has taken on a depressing, dusty shade of brown. Skyscrapers scrape the sky, but closer inspection reveals them to be towering piles of compacted garbage cubes rather than remaining man-made buildings.

For about the first half an hour of the movie, there is not a syllable of dialogue, only a curious introduction to the film's curious main character, a solar-powered trash compactor who goes about his daily business of basically cleaning up the planet as best he can. He travels around the global garbage dump, stuffing trash into his belly and compacting it into cubes, which he then carefully carries one at a time to the top of whatever building he is working on and places it neatly next to the rest. For centuries this has been the extent of his daily routine. He faithfully goes about it every day without breaks or vacations or complaints, with his only companion in the world being a single, surprisingly durable cockroach, whom he loves and protects like a pet.

[caption id="attachment_21347" align="alignright" width="300" caption="During WALL-E's average workday, he collects and brings home a variety of treasures."][/caption]

Humans are not extinct, however, and neither are animals. Other than that one cockroach there's not a plant or animal anywhere in the world, but it was the humans that drove themselves off the planet. For centuries they have been living on an enormous spaceship called The Axiom, and the result of 700 years of evolution in their chosen lifestyle provides one of the movie's two equally clear and powerful messages. And by the way, even though there is a total absence of any life on the planet, it wasn't war or disease or famine or global warming that drove everyone away, it was pollution. Mostly garbage pollution. WALL-E is a human creation that has gone on cleaning up our mess for centuries after we gave up and took off into space.

One day, WALL-E's centuries-old routine is shattered when a, ah, futuristic spaceship lands and leaves a single, egg-shaped robot hovering nearby. He is stunned with a sudden fascination with this robot, curiously named 'Eve,' who in turn displays total indifference toward him. She is here for a reason, and he is not it.

But the evolution of their relationship is the centerpiece of the film's story. It's well-known that WALL-E has almost no dialogue throughout most of the movie, so it's a major accomplishment that it is able to create such deeply developed robotic characters when all they ever say is each other's names. The movie relies almost entirely on the creation of an animated world and gives meaning to the movements of WALL-E and Eve within it, telling a story as important and moving as any of the Best Picture nominees.

The second half of the movie, when we meet the humans aboard the Axiom, is full of brighter colors and more cartoonish characters, and seems to be the section designed with the kids in mind. But even though it seems to go a little far into the childish realm, it still retains its message about the direction that we might evolve if we continue our lazy, fast-food habits. In an environment of decreased gravity, futuristic Americans have become frighteningly gelatinous blobs zoomed around on hovering easy chairs and waited on hand and foot by robots for so long that they are no longer able to move under their own power.

[caption id="attachment_21350" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="WALL-E gets scolded for not wiping his wheel-tracks on the way into the sterilized world of the Axiom."][/caption]

Once WALL-E and Eve make their way onto the ship, however, they operate almost in an entirely separate world, interacting with the other robots who are programmed only to service the humans.

There is one character aboard the Axiom, the human captain's robotic co-pilot, that is such a clear and direct homage to HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey that I'm almost surprised they didn't just call it HAL-2. But it's interestingly voiced (by Sigourney Weaver, believe it or not) and looks cool and ultimately provides the captain with a golden opportunity to make a symbolic stand and attempt to snap himself and the rest of the humans aboard out of the sedentary daze that they've been stuck in for centuries. Now would be the time to buy stock in stationary bicycles.

While the film feels like its cleaved into two pretty surprisingly different halves, it balances the childish and fun elements with the parts that are meant to be moving and carry the film's message. But most importantly, the characters are as charming as any animated characters I've ever seen, particularly WALL-E.

[caption id="attachment_21351" align="alignright" width="300" caption="And by the way, this might be the exact frame from 2001 that inspired the co-pilot character..."][/caption]

A lot of the film's comedic appeal comes from WALL-E's endless fascination with the world around him and his incongruous relationship with Eve.

I'm not sure what the next major jump in computer animation will be. WALL-E is stunningly well-drawn but doesn't present the kind of sudden, dizzying advance in animation technology that we got when Toy Story was released in 1995. I think we're just not there yet, although when we do get there, I'm willing to bet it's going to be Pixar that's going to give us the next animated small step for a man but giant leap for movie-going mankind.

WALL-E does, however, represent a major leap in the level of storytelling that we should expect in our animated feature films. The movie will be nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar, it will win, and it will be well deserved.

The Bean Meter

[caption id="attachment_21355" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="5 beans out of 5."][/caption]