WALL-E

Movie, G, 2008

Premise - In a future in which humans environmentally destroyed the earth, the entire human race has migrated to space, where they can ignore their problems of pollution. Left behind on our home planet is nothing but trash, as life forms are no longer sustainable. WALL-E is a lone robot left on earth, who was part of the failed clean-up operation. One day, he finds a small leaf, as the first sign of life on earth since its demise.

Review - I love Pixar films, on principle. They are about as high quality as filmmaking gets. This film in particular is famous for its hypothetical social commentary. However, I consider this to be more "art" than "film." I don't mean that in a negative way, but it's definitely not a film that I could just casually watch for fun. It's too deep for that. This is one of the reasons that on my list of Pixar films, it ranks lower, and I've seen it less times. It's not any lesser of a film than other Pixar films. In fact, it's better. BUT, my personal enjoyment is limited because of how much it deviates from a happy-go-lucky Pixar movie.

The primary reason I call this more "art" than "film" is how limited the dialogue is. Emotions and thoughts are conveyed, for the robots at least, pretty much entirely through sound effects and animation techniques. Animating a robot that an audience can relate to and empathize with is a feat in it of itself, so I can see why critics LOVED this movie. But it takes a slightly different frame of mind to watch it. Pixar has pulled this off before, able to convey storytelling through visuals and sounds OTHER than dialogue. However, it's a beautiful narrative mode that is best suited for short films. To do what Pixar has done with its shorts (bring life into inanimate beings who can't speak), and translate that to an entire feature film, has its shortfalls. It's harder to keep my attention.

What Pixar did here was bold. Inventive. Incredibly well-done. It is many people's favorites. But it's not one that I can watch all of the time for fun, like I would with favorites like Finding Nemo. (76/100)

Quote - "I don't want to survive, I want to live!"

What to watch for - This is an animated film, but to me it's so inventive and unique when we see clips incorporated from real, live-action materials. Examples are Hello Dolly, or the president's recorded video to the ship's captain.

If you enjoyed this movie, I'd recommend An Inconvenient Truth!

Directed by Andrew Stanton
Distributed by Disney (Pixar)