Go see WALL*E. Don't read about it or watch trailers. I think it's better not knowing where it's going. Here's all you need to know. It's Pixar. It's about robots. It's a love story. It has a 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. What more do you need to convince you? It's hard to compare WALL*E to In Bruges but I think this is my favorite film of the year so far. I saw it twice opening weekend and it was just as good the second time.
One thing I don't understand is why 30 years after R2D2 so many reviewers seem astonished that this is a love story about robots, as if how could we possibly care about robots? It's a cartoon. Why do we root for the rabbit instead of the human hunter in a Bugs Bunny cartoon? Why do we believe a duck can talk let alone be Daffy? Why do we accept a mouse who drives a riverboat? Or a baby deer with a rabbit as a best friend or a flying elephant? All of these work not because of what species the characters are but because they are fully realized and engaging. It's been 20 years since Who Framed Roger Rabbit which had us accept a cartoon rabbit married to a cartoon woman. WALL-E isn't even an interspecies romance! Go see for yourself how good the acting is in WALL*E. The audience I saw it with was constantly awwwwwing at the film.
There is an opening short, Presto, that could be the best Chuck Jones cartoon in 50 years. Reviewers comment about how the beginning of WALL*E has no dialog and is basically a silent film and how daring that is. But all of Presto is silent and that isn't daring at all. Also, the closing credits of WALL*E are really to fun to watch. I can't say I read any of the text but I was glued to the screen through all of them. So was about half the audience I saw it with. There's a cute final screen but it's not a scene.
I think it ranks third for me of the Pixar films after The Incredibles and Finding Nemo. It's a hard comparison. The Incredibles had a lot of energy and covered two genres (superheroes and James Bond) that I really like. Finding Nemo looked prettier, probably because of the richer color palette and more organic characters and settings and had a strong narrative.
*SPOILES: Read This After Seeing The Film*
A couple of things really struck me about this film. First off is how we immediately care about WALL*E. He's so expressive and yet it's accomplished mostly by how he bends his eyes and raises a small bit of metal that kinda acts like an eyebrow. It reminded me of Gromit. It's really apparent at the end when he's just a robot and then as EVE grabs his hand we watch as he comes alive, with just the slightest physical changes. It's really amazing. They achieve similar results with EVE and her eyes. The cockroach doesn't have eyes but the full theater I saw it with gasped when WALL*E accidently rolled over him. How do they make that happen?
WALL*E also has remarkably succinct storytelling. They show us so many things, so briefly and yet we remember them as they are reused later in the story. When WALL*E first wanders around the Axiom we see many different kinds of robots but it's always self evident what they are supposed to do. When we meet the defective robots it surprised me how many different ones I knew and that I understood how each one was broken. M-O stares at the ground a few seconds and we know that he's pondering jumping off the green line he follows.
I also liked the Apple references. There are probably more but I noticed the iPod in WALL*E's trailer, WALL*E's boot sound used twice. I thought the mice in the trash pile were Apple's Mighty Mice but I think they were regular two button ones. Also the first time I saw it I missed the obvious Star Trek references, particularly when EVE's ship docked with the Axiom. This site lists some of the Easter Eggs.
The real theme of this film is how WALL*E is the only character that's really alive and virtually everyone he meets, robot or human, becomes alive for having known him (or having to deal with his clumsiness). I loved how even the robot that was just pushing buttons on a (binary) keyboard learned to wave after WALL*E waved to him. John and Mary and the Captain all come out of their stupor after meeting him and I loved the line "I didn't know we have a pool." After seeing the film, two friends and I went out to dinner, at one point I was sitting there as both were texting other people. I leaned over to one and said "Don't just survive...live!" Perhaps we really do need to listen to WALL*E.
7 comments:
It's a cartoon? sure, and the Space Shuttle is a glider.
Regarding the Apple references, I will mention two you did not. First, the images during the closing credits were very reminiscent of old original Mac screen icons. Second, Eve herself. Damned if shewasn't a reshaped iMac. She was the exact same white and smooth skin tone as the previous gen iMac.
Okay, now that I wrote the above, I then clicked on your link to the Easter Eggs. Duh. Eve was created my Jonathan Ive, Mr. iPod himself. There ya go.
So anyways, we saw it today and truly enjoyed it. I will definitely have to see if at least once more, because it frankly got a little confusing with all the robots running around. But perhaps that was because I was busy feeding my daughter M&M's and wiping up her lap when she spilled water on herself.
I did find a few of the science errors amusing. Like when the ship listed to one side, and everything slid sideways....in space. And I have to wonder, would a fire extinguisher burst in space? Oh, and the plant survived the vacuum of space quite nicely. There was one more obvious one, but I'm forgetting it at the moment.
In any case, I think I agree with your rating within the Pixar films. You may recall when I saw CARS at first I was totally awestruck and thought it was the best ever. But looking back I agree now that Incredibles and Nemo are far better. But it's a toss up between Cars and Wall-e. Both very different movies, both incredible animation. And I liked them for very different reasons.
As far as the kids, both my 7- and my 4-year old liked it. I saw one dad have to take both his 4-ish girls out of the theatre, but I think they just weren't getting it. It wasn't scary, it was probably just over their heads.
Oh, and We managed to create for ourselves two huge statements of irony after the movie. First, we went directly from the movie theatre to Costco. Sad, I know. But not as sad as the fat that I counted no less than three, um, plus-sized folk riding around Costco in those medically prescribed scooters. What a country we live in.
Second, all kids going to see it got a free Wall-e digital watch, your typical rubberized piece of crap. Natalie left hers in the bathroom and she made us go back to the theatre and beg for another (it was on the way, back from Costco anyways...)
Saw it again tonight and still loved it. I wasn't a big fan of cars. I still think it's because it's the only pixar film where the main character is an ass and must turn into a good person. Also, never a NASCAR fan.
I caught the science errors too but for some reason I was willing to forget them instantly. The worst is the plant in the vacuum but that scene was too much fun to be ruined.
I was very curious to see how kids dealt with it. Both times I saw it kids seemed fine. I was wondering about all the reviews I read that wondered about the first 40 minutes before a human appeared. I would expect kids to be better able to cope with this.
Loved the typo in your irony paragraph. "fat" instead of "fact"
Wow, great typo. I couldn't have planned that.
Natalie is sitting here next to me and says she loved it. We talked about the social commentary a bit, and she got it.
What did she like most about it? "The lesson that you shouldn't use too much trash, and you should start to recycle and clean up your act".
There ya go.
Oh yeah, one more comment. If Eve was sent to Earth to look for life, why the nervous trigger finger? As soon as she senses movement she blasts the crap out of whatever was there? Kinda counterproductive to her directive, dontcha think?
I loved the later post about the radical righties blaming Wall-e for everything that's wrong in the world today. Sad, very sad.
Yeah. Though if I had to argue, she was looking for vegetative life, which is not locomotive.
You posted your review so quickly after Wall-E came out that I had to squint to avoid the spoilers until I saw the movie.
We went to see it last night and it was fantastic. Even the talky kids in the audience we eventually entranced by Wall-E and his love affair with Eve. Our group also winced audibly when Wall-E ran over his pet cockroach. It was funny how quickly the audience empathized with the non-human characters. I think the "silent" film beginning helped, and I have been empathizing with non-human characters since my first teddy bear at 2 years old.
N&&J's dad: I think the fire extinguisher might survive and not burst as you are only adding another atmosphere of pressure difference. It was a more clever use of a fire extinguisher than just spraying it in a stairwell at college. I also wanted to yell, "put it back inside", when they pulled the plant out in space.
I noticed that Wall-E's antics at the beginning of the movie were training (or was it just foreshadowing) for what he needed to do later in the movie, the fire extinguisher is the perfect example.
Wall-E had a good personality that was immediately evident in his actions but Eve also was a character with many dimensions. I enjoyed her bad temper especially as she had the gun to throw a tantrum with. I also appreciated watching her heart soften as she saw her own security tapes of Wall-E taking care of her while seh sat in hibernation waiting for the ship to return.
I appreciate your way of describing Wall-E's effect on those he encountered. I thought of it as his friendly or big-hearted randomness or chaos added a little chaos to the situations he was in, but I like your way of putting it, Wall-E makes the things he touches come alive, even the living things like the humans in the movie.
This is a movie I would pay to see again, which is typically the highest praise I can give.
It was just as good the second time. I like the notion that the opening stuff was training for what he needed to do. The fire extinguisher let him realize his dream of flying with eve and that was wonderful.
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