It's hard to describe in words how incredible I personally find this film.
In a distant, but not so unrealistic future, where mankind has abandoned earth because it has become covered with trash from products sold by the powerful multi-national Buy N Large corporation, WALL-E, a garbage collecting robot has been left to clean up the mess. Mesmerized with trinkets of earth's history and show tunes, WALL-E is alone on Earth except for a sprightly pet cockroach. One day, Eve, a sleek (and dangerous) reconnaissance robot, is sent to earth to find proof that life is once again sustainable. WALL-E falls in love with Eve. WALL-E rescues Eve from a dust storm and shows her a living plant he found amongst the rubble. Consistent with her "directive" Eve takes the plant and automatically enters a deactivated state except for a blinking green beacon. WALL-E, doesn't understand what has happened to his new friend, but true to his love, he protects her from wind, rain, and lightening, even as she is unresponsive. One day a massive ship comes to reclaim Eve, but WALL-E, out of love or loneliness hitches a ride on the outside of the ship to rescue Eve. The ship arrives back at a large space cruise ship, which is carrying all of the humans who evacuated earth 700 years earlier. The people of earth ride around this space resort on hovering chairs which give them a constant feed of TV and video chatting. They drink all of their meals through a straw out of laziness and/or bone loss, and are all so fat that they can barely move. When the auto-pilot computer, acting on hastily given instructions sent many centuries before, tries to prevent the people of earth from returning, by stealing the plant, WALL-E, Eve, the portly captain, and a band of broken robots stage a mutiny.
The animation is flawless. Absolutely flawless. Especially on earth and the robots. It looks real. Much of the time it's impossible to tell whether or not it is real. The few slightly-shaky styled shots that appear a few times in the film only makes the animation that much more amazing and realistic. The humans are really good, too, while not realistic in the sense of you seeing it right now in real life, but they do have a realistic feel to them. The thing with the humans, I believe, is that they were purposefully meant to have this slightly rounded, slightly unrealistic feeling.
I believe the reason is to take a satirical look at humans, and what our goals for a future, perfect utopia, is. It questions what we want, and shows you what is a very, very likely outcome of our desires for a 'better' world, showing both positive and negative effects. The animation for the humans, I believe, was made rounded and slightly more cartoonish to emphasize that that is how we will become. Fat, lazy, yet so perfect. At times, especially with that perspective on the humans, they actually do look very real.
The story is brilliant. There are many little things in the film that have so much meaning to them. There are things that will be nostalgic to older viewers, and things that younger viewers will love to look at. However, it does steer for the cheesy, cliché aspects of a child's film, yet still remaining a completely G-rated film.
I don't call this a child's film at all. Not because it has adult material, because it doesn't. I say this because the film is perfect for everyone. Literally, everyone. There are things in it every person can enjoy, no matter who they are. It has obvious homages to Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", and any adult who remembers seeing that film will notice this.
WALL-E is such a lovable character. I've never felt so much emotion for one character. He will definitely go down in history as iconic as Darth Vader, or Indiana Jones. I was so close to crying at pivotal parts in the film, and although I didn't fully break out and cry, I have never felt so much emotion in my heart with any other film as I did with this one.
EVE is very fun and interesting. One scene in particular, with her, was so beautiful, that my eyes got teary. Her chemistry with WALL-E is so oddly perfect. They are so different in appearance and personality, yet they work so well together.
The other robots are all lovable, except for the "enemy" robots, who still add much depth to the film. In particular, M-O was the cutest, obviously not counting WALL-E.
Pixar has always made great animation films. But this, without a doubt, tops all of their own film, and most other films. It restores faith in the animation films. It captures the magic and wonder as past Disney films, which is something I have not seen in most modern animation films.
I would not be surprised at all if this won for best picture of the year. It deserves it more than anything.
This is one of greatest achievements in cinematic history, and I encourage everyone to see this.
My Rating
Wall-E : 8.9/10
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