July 5, 2008 -- Pixar studios, a division of Disney that seems to be the only Hollywood studio that can reliably churn out one good film after another, has done it again with “WALL·E,” an animated feature film about robots in love on a lonely planet in the far future. I'm not nearly as enthusiastic about this film as the voters at IMDB which put it at number 14 of the greatest films ever made, but it is a good, solid effort.

WALL·E is a robot, specifically a Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class, who is the last of his kind on Earth. He works compressing garbage into cubes and stacks them into great towers. All of his fellow garbage-stacking robots stopped working long ago. His only friend is a durable cockroach. Over the years, WALL·E has become sentient. He collects items that interest him and he loves to watch “Hello Dolly” on his TV, where he gets his ideas about love. He also finds a small plant growing among the heaps of garbage. Soon after that, he is visited by a sleek new robot named EVE (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) who has come to Earth from outer space to find evidence that Earth is ready for habitation again. EVE comes from a luxurious spaceship called Axiom, where the exiles from Earth have been living for many years.

WALL·E falls in love with EVE, despite the fact that she repeatedly tries to kill him. Eventually, EVE reciprocates the feeling after WALL·E stows away on a spaceship taking EVE back to Axiom. The rest of the story gets more complicated as a computer program aboard Axiom tries to hide the evidence of life returning to earth. WALL·E and EVE, along with the humans aboard Axiom join forces to defeat the evil AUTO program (voiced by the computer program Macintalk). The love story is wistful, but there is also real heroism on the part of WALL·E and EVE as they risk it all to return humans to a planet they destroyed long ago.

Fred Willard has cameo in this film as an executive of a Wall-Mart-like company, Buy n Large, which has trashed the earth through rampant consumerism. The humans aboard Axiom have become bloated and lazy. They are barely able to move on their own. The story is at once pessimistic and optimistic about the Earth and humans. Yet it is the robots who are the center of the story, as in “Star Wars.” It is the robots who exemplify the best human traits of love, tolerance and respect. It is the robots who have faith that the humans will finally do the right thing.

None of this is really new, the design of WALL·E is very similar to the Johnny 5 robot in “Short Circuit.” Themes in the film borrow heavily from “Star Wars,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “City Lights” and many other films. In some ways, it is a throwback to the days of silent films. There is very little dialog in it. There is no doubt this is an entertaining film. It also has enough ideas in it that it can be interpreted in a number of ways. Most of all, it is a nice little romantic film about the transformational power of love. It rates a B.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2008 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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