Within the rumbling, stumbling hunk of junk that is WALL-E beats the sweetest, warmest heart — a robotic representation of humanity’s highest potential.
And within the sci-fi adventure “WALL-E” lies an artistic truth: that Pixar’s track record remains impeccable.
Following high-concept movies about a superhero family, talking cars and a gourmet rat, this is the Disney computer animation arm’s boldest experiment yet. “WALL-E” is essentially a silent film in which the two main characters, a mismatched pair of robots, communicate through bleeps and blips and maybe three words between them.
And yet director Andrew Stanton (“Finding Nemo”) is resourceful enough to find infinite ways for them to express themselves — amusingly, achingly, and with emotional precision. He’s also created a visual marvel.
The smudged, dented metal that makes up WALL-E’s frame looks so realistic, you could reach out and touch it; at the same time, his big eyes often appear so vulnerable and pleading, you can’t help but feel a connection with him. The characters are adorable without being too cutesy.
Ben Burtt, a multiple Oscar winner who created R2-D2’s signature sound effects in the “Star Wars” movies, provides the “voice” of WALL-E, or Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class. Seven hundred years after Earth was abandoned, leaving the planet looking like a post-apocalyptic Tomorrowland, WALL-E is still doing the job he was programmed to do: pick up all the trash he sees around him and compress it into tidy packages.
But he’s a romantic at heart with an eye for nostalgia, sifting through garbage for items like bowling pins, a Rubik’s Cube, an iPod, a spork. The script, which Stanton co-wrote with Jim Reardon from a story he co-wrote with Pete Docter, evokes iconic cultural items and imagery without going for the cheap pun or empty celebrity gag. Genuflections to “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Alien” seem fitting, as does WALL-E’s physical resemblance to E.T.
He’s an odd, lovely combination: He carries himself like a little old man, but has the innocence and wonderment of a child. It’s only upon the arrival of the sleek, shiny EVE (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, voiced by Elissa Knight), a robot sent back to the planet on a search mission, that he realizes how lonely he’s been. That she’s everything he’s not — new, quick, high-tech, efficient — is only part of the allure. She’s someone with whom he can finally share all the lost treasures he’s amassed.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the universe, the remaining humans are lolling about in a giant flying cruise ship. Thanks to the big, evil corporation that runs the place (and ruined Earth), every convenience is available at their chubby fingertips — oh yes, we as a people have gotten fatter and lazier in the future, it seems. And the possibility of useless consumption is overpowering and ever-present.
Maybe it’s more than a little hypocritical for a movie that’s being distributed by a worldwide entertainment conglomerate to condemn needless spending on food, toys, stuff.
You could busy your brain with such complex thoughts.
You’re more likely, though, to walk out of the theater with the rare joy of knowing that you’ve just witnessed something that touched your heart.
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