Film Review #88: WALL-E

Out of all years of film I've been alive for, I don't think I saw more movies than in the year 2008.  After all, 2008 had a couple of REALLY good movies come out, also including a couple of mediocre but still passable films in my eyes:

Iron Man
The Dark Knight
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Hancock
Bolt
Quantum of Solace
Kung Fu Panda 
etc.

That being said, I went into WALL-E, not knowing what to expect.  I had heard from a friend that this was the best animated film since The Lion King, while I heard from another that it was really kinda corny.  My curiosity was piqued, so I went into the theater expecting either the most cheesy and flawed film ever, or one of the most ambitious and marvelous animated films of all time.  THANK GOD I got the latter.  WALL-E is among one of the greatest films of all time.  It combines pure innocence with a single little robot falling in love, with a symbolic future of things that can still happen to people here on Earth damaging their environment beyond repair.  This was the first animated film I'd seen in a long time that I wouldn't stop talking about after I saw it.  It is a sheer masterpiece in every meaning of the word.

PLOT: Set in the far off future, Earth has been abandoned by the humans, who ventured off into space in a massive space station after hundreds of years of pollution and environmental damaging have made the planet uninhabitable.  But they sent off several robots to clean up the planet, with all but one ultimately wearing down and dying.  WALL-E continues to clean and follow his pre-programmed orders, that is until he encounters and falls in love with another robot named EVE.  The two robots discover life on earth, in the form of a plant in an old shoe.

EVE takes the plant into space, closely followed by WALL-E.  We then find out what happened to all of the humans.  They got really really fat, and have been forced to rely on robots in this super space station that caters to their every whim.  It's now up to WALL-E to get the plants to the humans in time to prove to them that people could live on earth again.

What's Bad?: There are a couple of things that are flawed in this film, but for the most part, they're kind of nitpicky.  The rotoscoping that was done on the humans was a bit of a head scratcher, mainly because of how well the humans looked in both The Incredibles and Ratatouille.  Then, they have some scenes that look like they were in live action, which is also kind of distracting.

What's Good?: Pixar does it's best when they get us to care for characters that we wouldn't ordinarily care for.  Be it a monster under our beds, a clownfish, or an old man (I'll get to that film next time), Pixar knows how to get us to care for things we wouldn't bat an eyelash at.  The relationship between WALL-E and EVE is one of the most heartfelt and loving relationships in animation history.  And it didn't involve a prince or princess.

The entire first half of this movie is perfect.  I cannot find a flaw with it.  It leaves us in mystery over what happened to the humans, and the naivete and innocence of WALL-E is really refreshing.

The animation is some of the finest Pixar's ever done.  Even including epic animation like in Finding Nemo and Toy Story 2 is pale in comparison to this film.  And while the human animation is a bit odd, the movement and depth of movement through outer space is almost as believable as the ocean scenes in Nemo.
Overall: WALL-E is a sheer masterpiece.  I don't think I can say much more with how good this film is.  The Oscar wins, the box office, and many other things have shown that this film is a landmark in the history of animation and a well put together film that can contend with some of the best animated films of all time.  End of discussion.

Final Grade: A+