WALL-E Review

WALL-E made me smile. WALL-E made me laugh. WALL-E almost made me tear. WALL-E also made me go "ehhh". But just a little bit.

First, let me start off by saying that everyone should see this movie. The visuals are fantastic and the animation is superb. This is Pixar we're talking about so these should come as no surprise. What's most endearing is WALL-E him(it?)self. He's adorable; a hard, resourceful worker. Innocent, yet lonely. He watches a movie where a couple holds hands, and we see that he yearns for the same thing. Sure, his cockroach friend is there, but, it's no female robot.

Of course, it's not long before his opportunity to hold someone else's hand shows up. This opportunity is EVE, a probe that comes to Earth and keeps scanning things. Oh, and she's a feisty one. Forget trying to hold her hand. WALL-E almost loses his life just trying to say hi.

A relationship eventually develops. But not before EVE finds a plant, the only plant on Earth, and gets whisked away in the spaceship she arrived in. Why this happens, we're not sure. WALL-E, in love, pursues EVE to the far reaches of outer space.

This is where the movie, for good or bad, changes direction. We find out that there's a "cruise" space ship containing the remaining humans of Earth. They're ALL fat and float around in hover chairs while looking, and only looking, at a holographic TV screen where they can be entertained or talk to their friends... who are right next to them. It's not until WALL-E accidentally breaks a girl's TV when she realizes Oh hey, we have a pool! A pool that was right in front of her... It's all good and funny, but this is also the part where I went "ehhh...".

There's pseudo-political/social critique of what can only be of Americans. All of the humans only had American accents. Sure, there were different races, but only American accents. For such a smart movie, they didn't seem to put much thought into the human aspect of the film. Just cliches that reminded me of Idiocracy (which I did not like). I get the satire, but I just felt it could've been done better.

And although the main story was between WALL-E and EVE, the end of the human story just seemed a bit too perfect-happy-ending-everything-will-be-fine kind of ending.

Otherwise, all of the other aspects were wonderful. All of the robots were great. The HAL-like computer was expected and welcomed. The love story was innocent and pure. And WALL-E was just so damn cute. I would love to see him in another movie.

I give WALL-E ***1/2 out of ****. GO SEE IT!