WALL·E
WALL·E is the latest offering from animation geniuses Pixar and, in my humble opinion, it's their best yet. Our titular hero is a small battered robot whose purpose is to clean up the mountains of trash left on Earth in the year 2815; 700 years after the last humans left on giant spaceships to escape the rubbish that was threatening to consume the Earth. Now, out of the hundreds of WALL·E robots left behind our hero is the only one still functioning. He spends his days compacting rubbish into cubes and building them into giant skyscraper size piles. However, after 7 centuries WALL·E has developed a personality and is often distracted by the more unusual things he finds, as well as becoming obsessed with watching an old VHS of 'Hello Dolly' and learning the music and dances from it. But then one day another robot turns up: EVE, sent across the universe to scan the Earth for signs that it can be occupied by human life again. Eve is sleek, smooth and powerful, and WALL·E becomes determined to distract her from her mission and make friends. Unfortunately their blossoming friendship is cut short when EVE discovers a small plant and is called back to the human spaceship to deliver her discovery. WALL·E hitches a ride on the spaceship and in the second half of the film we find out what has happened to the last of the human race...
WALL·E is easily one of the best films I've seen this year, even despite my very high expectations it did not disappoint in any way. Obviously the visuals are gorgeous, Pixar truly are at the top of their game and the trailers we saw from Dreamworks et al before the film started just couldn't hold a candle to the photo-real animation seen in this film. Even the most simple sequences look spectacular - the scene where EVE and WALL·E are 'dancing' through space (with the help of a fire extinguisher in WALL·E's case) is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. Leaving that aside, however, the story here is equally compelling. I love the way the film is split into two halves with the first section being reminiscent of 'I am Legend', but better and with a smaller, cuter, more metallic Will Smith. There is barely any dialogue, we just see WALL·E go about his life, and discover this new world, 700 years on from the present day. It's utterly charming to watch, despite being the only creature left on Earth it's impossible to feel sorry for WALL·E as he amuses himself with the mysterious objects he uncovers - a spork, a bra, a rubber duckie...
The larger part of the film is concerned with his meeting EVE and then ending up on the human ship: The Axiom. From what I'd heard of the plotline of the film I was worried that this would be where things went downhill and got heavy (so to speak) as we see what has become of the human race: reduced to large blobby entities who are dependent on their hoverchairs and only interact with each other via comm-screens in front of their noses. However, bleak as this may sound as soon as WALL·E arrives on board the Axiom he starts to have an effect on the people he meets and a chain of events is set off that will result in the salvation of mankind. I adored the sequence on the ship, the best part is WALL·E's encounters with all of the other robots aboard. There's a section where he's deposited with a collection of 'malfunctioning' robots that is obviously some kind of homage to C-3PO and R2-D2's experience on the Jawa ship in Star Wars. It's a joy to watch, each robot has their own personality and despite having no discernible human features they are all utterly endearing. I especially enjoyed 'M-O' and his constant battle against 'foreign contaminant's :)
In terms of its effects and technical ability this film is the most impressive I've seen all year, but it's so much more than that. The characters are charming without being overly cute, the story is entertaining and it contains an important environmental message, but without being patronising or downbeat. I'd recommend everyone to see WALL·E, it's definitely not just for kids and I will certainly be seeing it again; because of the richness of the detail I'm sure there was loads of stuff I missed first time round. Also stick around for the start of the credits which, apart from being beautiful, give us a glimpse of WALL·E and EVE's future.


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