Review: Wall•E
In the past I have drizzled praise all over Pixar, specifically the fantasy-realist films that Brad Bird has made with them. There are many reasons to heap laurels on the Disney-owned animation studio: its innovation in the field of computer animation before such a thing even existed, its creative use of all available tools at any given point in their history, its ability to captivate the minds and pocket books of children and adults alike. “Wall•E”, however, is something different, something more than any of us thought these imagineers were capable of.
One of an army of similar robots built to clean up the mess that humans have left behind after leaving earth, Wall•E has outlasted every single one of his compatriots on the planet. He meanders through a city that has become a landfill as the sole survivor of seven hundred years of neglect, often passing identical robots which have since shorted or died. His only friend is a cockroach who follows him around while he does the dirty work. This lonely existence goes on for an extremely long chuck of this “childrens” film. It is harrowing, but Wall•E seems to have developed a personality over time, enough to keep us entertained as he makes the best of his frightening situation, collecting trinkets and watching videotapes on an iPod.
His world is rocked, literally, when a ship lands with a newer, shinier robot aboard, Eva. Okay, you may notice I have been referring to Wall•E with masculine pronouns, and about about to slap some feminine ones onto Eva. I wouldn’t do this if the filmmakers didn’t force my hand on this one. My only complaint with the film is that, because it is Disney, we can’t have robots that exist outside of gender, which is stupid because technically they are just write and metal and software. Heaven forbid we even think that they are two boys or two girls rubbing motherboards. I’ll look the other way on this one since after all, they did make a portentous view of the future with long fits of silence and zero furry creature while still finding a way to sell it to kids.
Where was I?
Oh yeah. Eva comes to Earth and keeps blowing stuff up until she decides to befriend Wall•E. Silly dolt that he is, our hero falls head over heels for the tough girl on the playground, but I guess he could never get intimate with cockroach, so Eva would have to do. As a gift, he gives her a plant, which shuts her down completely until the day a ship comes for her. Wall•E stows away on board and is taken to the spaceship that houses the remaining humans in the universe. We learn that “Buy ‘N’ Save”, a conglomerate that managed to get its CEO elected President of the world, was offering up vacations to space for a few years while Wall•E robots would clean up their homes. Once most of them were up there, global warming took effect, wiped out humanity, 700 years passed, and now the only remaining humans in the universe are fat, sit in chairs, suck meals out of cups, and communicate with each other only through video screens on floating chairs. Oddly enough, it sounds pretty plausible.
Eva, it turns out, is a reconnaissance bot that the mothership has been sending out ever since the humans left in search of sustainable life on Earth via photosynthesis. The plant Wall•E gives her represents the ability to return home for the chubby captain of the ship, but the computers want to fight back and won’t let people go home. Here is where the film will start to freak you out if you think about it too long. Computers are just computers right? They do what we tell them? Well, not anymore, not in this movie at least. Wall•E’s personality turns out to be contagious as he and Eva go against everything they have been programmed to do in hopes of saving the plant that represents a new beginning for…humans. They are motivated by a need to help others, for something they cannot even begin to understand. Or do they?
The philosophical questions abound, but don’t worry, the film’s message may be heavy-handed but its execution is just as fun as any other offering from the Mouse House’s 3D shingle. I am reminded of Terry Gilliam’s “Time Bandits”, a romp that I loved as a child about a boy who travels through time stealing treasure with a band of dwarves. After watching it as an adult, I see that it preaches the importance of imagination over technological distractions, as well as explorative of many literary viewpoints of good and evil. In other words, I hope that the rugrats who are watching “Wall•E” today will soon be able to see the real value in it, which goes far beyond a cute robot hitting himself in the face with a paddle-ball. Of course, that moment is part of this masterpiece’s charm too.
