WALL-E Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

Directive Completed - Mission Successful!

Let's get it out of the way then: Wall-E is absolutely wonderful. Forget the 'Short Circuit' and 'ET' referencing. Go and watch this film and see it for what it is: something unique.

So Wall-E has finally arrived, after much hype and after having been in the Pixar pipeline since they first set out on their animation adventures. Always sceptical of 'the next big thing', I was surprised to find myself quite willingly swept up (ahem...) by this unconventionally cute waste disposal robot's tidal preliminaries.

And this is where Pixar get there first lot of brownie points from me. In Wall-E they have created this adorable character, yet the film does by no means rely on 'cute' or 'giggle' factor. Do not get me wrong, there are laughs, chuckles, sighs, sniggers, and aww's galore. This, however, is in my opinion the least 'kiddy' movie Pixar have yet produced.

The opening scenes are awe inspiring and set the tone. Earth is totally mounted in waste, desolate and abandoned- a Dystopia. Sweeping glides over an American futuristic city show only piles and piles of garbage, in places cubed and stacked up by the only moving thing in sight: Wall-E. Look closer and you get to meet his little sidekick, a cockroach that follows Wall-E around and lives with him. Yes, it is adorable, watching a robot pile up tons of our left over rubbish (human kind has long since escaped the planet), but taking the time to collect a few souvenirs (Rubik's cube, plastic spoons, video tapes of old fashioned musical movies). But with Wall-E switching on in the mornings, grumpy and sleepy before he goes to work, he is so very human like and yet not- down to the fact that he appreciates the 'little things' and is a true romantic.

Enter Eve, the 'female' Robot sent to Earth on a 'secrete directive'- and Wall-E's love object to be.

What follows is a blend of an estranged love story and rescue mission, any further details might spoil the story, so I will behave.

The ingredients that will make Wall-E superior to other Pixar movies (and indeed films in general) are the absence of dialogue for a major part of the film. Clicks, whirls, electronic words maybe, but no snappy one-liners to keep you on board. Just a visual fest and details that are masterful and a characterisation of Wall-E and Eve that is so touching in places, it will melt even the biggest cynic.

When the humans do enter, they are all but props- and just another reminder of the question: Is this what you want your future to be like?

Wall-E is a masterpiece and deserves all the credit it will get.

SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED

* Toy Story

* 2001 A Space Odyssee

* Finding Nemo

Yawn

Maybe this is a film for junior science fiction buffs. For the most part I was scratching my head at what appeared to be a very insubstantial and jerky plot. The graphics are good - hence the one star rating I give it, but I found nothing much to chuckle at, and got thoroughtly bored by the squeaks and hums which were supposed to pass for conversation. Why the rave reviews? I must live on a different planet to some of the other reviewers. At least it is a planet which isn't quite so full of junk as Wall-e's environment!!