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WALL-E (2008)
Director: Andrew Stanton
Synopsis
In the latest Pixar creation, a trash-compacting robot discovers a world beyond his polluted home on Earth.
Movie review
From Time Out New York
Arriving at a point when one might think that Pixar could top itself only by supersizing, WALL-E plays the remarkable gambit of going minimal: The first half eschews dialogue almost entirely, establishing our presence on an abandoned Earth circa 700 years from now via meticulous design work and a sensational soundtrack—much of it the vocal stylings of Ben Burtt, who supplied R2-D2’s beeps.
Our hero is WALL-E, an irrepressible, E.T.-ish trash compactor whose start-up chord suggests he’s a descendant of the Steve Jobs empire. Lonely in a polluted city, he collects the tchotchkes of the human age: a Rubik’s Cube, silverware, a VCR that only knows from Hello, Dolly! The arrival of a mysterious robot named Eve brings first a duel, then intergalactic courtship, then a journey into space, where—in a funnier but somehow darker corner of the universe—the humans now reside.
Mankind is corporate-controlled, overweight and resigned to live in a kind of pastel Matrix. (You’ll also catch obligatory nods to Star Wars and 2001.) WALL-E and Eve wind up bringing humanity back to the humans, and director Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) pulls off some terrific set pieces along the way. Eco-friendly, pro-exercise and featuring a glorious use of a fire extinguisher, WALL-E sparks with genuine creativity.
Author: Ben Kenigsberg
Time Out New York Issue 665: June 26 -July 2, 2008
User reviews of this film
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- Robin Smith said...
- Posted on Jun 30 2008 04:54 I loved it . It has done really well on the imdb which is good.
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- Dude said...
- Posted on Jun 30 2008 04:53 Amazing and so well made!
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- alex VZ said...
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Posted on Jun 29 2008 14:45
borrisbatanov: "Ideology is no fun."
I see. So cinema for children is only allowed to be 'fun' is it? And I should also point out that Bugs Bunny was FULL of ideology, not least when he was fighting Nazis in those wartime flicks! Any art form contains ideology of one sort or another, and kids films are no different. Exclude kids from culture and you really will end up with mindless zombies! - Report as inappropriate
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- Alex VZ said...
- Posted on Jun 29 2008 14:39 Well fortunately, phusis, there are bucket-loads of kids films that contain laughs. It's OK for one to be slightly different, and I utterly disagree with your prediction; very, very many people are bored with the same old empty feel-good nonsense, it's about time someone made a film for kids that might actually be about something.
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- phusis said...
- Posted on Jun 28 2008 19:43 I am in complete agreement with borrisbatanov. Our kids did not laugh at any point in Wall E. My wife slept. I predict this agitprop spectacular will not do nearly as well as the critics would wish.
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- borrisbatanov said...
- Posted on Jun 28 2008 16:42 When I was a kid, we watched Merry Melodies (Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fud, Roadrunner, etc.), Popeye, Betty Boop, Woody Woodpecker, Bullwinkle, etc. This stuff was fun, total anarchy. We used to squeal with joy, laugh our heads off, bounce up and down. The kids watching this ideologically driven hi-tech heavily invested product were sitting there like mummies. Ideology is no fun. It's like going to church, not the playground. Enough with all this self-righteous green is good, capitalism is evil, and gender politics. Leave the kids alone!
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- Walt said...
- Posted on Jun 28 2008 15:10 Great movie , 5 Stars, very entertaining, over before you know it, all ages will love Wall-e! Dose have, get off your but an exercise undertones, and think green, but it makes you think! Go and escape be entertained and enjoy!
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- Alex VZ said...
- Posted on Jun 28 2008 05:12 In response to Borrisbatanov: Whoa! That's some paranoia on display in your comments! It doesn't sound like you've actually seen the film so obviously the very idea of it has been enough to threaten you! But seriously, even if the film is guilty of the political indoctrination that you ascribe to it, surely the success and maturity of any culture can be gauged by the variety of political opinions that exist within it? This being so, you should really celebrate a film like Wall-E that does not conform to the other 99% of Hollywood product, particularly children's films which unequivocally put across the idea that everyone can have as much of everything as they want with no limits or consequences. The laws of thermodynamics dictate otherwise, I'm afraid, and much of the world is living in abject poverty so that those in the West can continue to live excessively and greedily. If Wall-E dares to point out this greed, really you should be applauding it. Or you can just pretend that everything's OK and go and see virtually any other movie, I'm sure none will offend you to this extent!
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- borrisbatanov said...
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Posted on Jun 27 2008 22:38
This isn’t meant as a review, but a commentary on the values and politics implicit in this film.
Communist Party control of the Soviet Union ruthlessly imposed a uniform propaganda on all public communication, on the press, the arts, literature, on everything spoken, whispered, broadcast, painted, filmed, performed, or published. It would seem that we have come to a similar pervasive uniform mind control in the US, imposed not by an external totalitarian dictatorship, but internally, by ourselves, by a media elite and academe just as ruthless and pervasive, a steel fist in a velvet glove holding candy.
Pixar is in Emeryville, CA, at the foot of the Bay Bridge, just east of San Francisco. Emeryville, recently a run-down post-industrial collection of abandoned factories and warehouses, a town without a sufficient tax base to pay for even basic services or schools, has been slowly, steadily rejuvenated and gentrified, starting in the late 1980’s. Being a mere stone’s throw from Berkeley, its geography unequivocally identifies and circumscribes its politics and culture. This isn’t the San Joaquin Valley.
Three rigid politically correct assumptions pervade and define “WALL-E”:
1. The movie is “green.” Earth, a toxic wasteland where nothing lives, has been laid to waste by corporate greed and profligate consumerism, literally buried in garbage.
2. Capitalism is evil. Evil is business which caters to our every pleasure and our inability to say “No.” Humans, the earth, even the President are totally at the mercy of the evil monolithic corporation.
3. The male is clumsy, disheveled, and emasculated, the butt of the joke. The female is slim, perfect, smart, and powerful. Role reversal is now complete. “Girls rule.”
I can see these biases for what they are, merely the mental flab, the glib fads, of the times. But what about the 4- and 5-year old munchkins in the audience all around us? Aren’t they being insidiously indoctrinated by the Church of Political Correctness? Aren’t they being force fed the same palaver at school and on TV? - Report as inappropriate
Cast & crew
Director: Andrew Stanton
Genre(s): Children's
Rated: G
Duration: 97 mins
US Release: Jun 27 2008
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