"WALL-E" Movie review

Written by Sean McBride

Wednesday, 25 June 2008

Surprise, surprise. Pixar’s latest is another masterpiece “WALL-E” Pixar Animation Directed by Andrew Stanton Starring Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Fred Willard, Sigourney Weaver and Jeff Garlin and John Ratzenberger Rated G  4 Stars           See the Movie Guy's Interview with the director of "WALL-E" here It shouldn't surprise anyone to hear that Pixar Animation has delivered another cinematic masterpiece, after all, the studio behind "Toy Story," "Finding Nemo" and last summer's "Ratatouille" has yet to make a mediocre film, let alone an outright bomb. These guys only make hits, and their latest film, "WALL-E," is a 4 star winner. It's the best film of the summer, a sure-fire hit, yada, yada, yada. What else did you expect? There are no accolades too generous for the film that turns out to be so good that it's now my favorite story from the Pixar library. Sorry Nemo. "WALL-E" is set in a future where humanity has turned the earth into one giant garbage dump. Every man, woman and child has blasted off into space, leaving a fleet of robots to clean up the mess. After putting in 800 years of never-ending garbage detail, WALL-E is the only robot still in working order, and this poor little trash compactor on wheels is lonely, despite the companionship of a surprisingly cute cockroach friend. That’s right, the cockroach is so adorable that he cries out to be made into a soft, plushie toy. Bug buddies aside, our hero needs companionship, so it's love at first sight when a spaceship lands and out pops a probe drone named EVE. The cyber-courtship doesn't go smoothly, but WALL-E is so smitten by his new robot friend that he hitches a ride on her spaceship rather than risk loosing her to the stars. It's a charming little love story, made all the more poignant by the fact that the filmmakers do the entire first act without using any dialogue other than an occasional beep here and there. It turns out that great storytellers don't need words, particularly when you have such an expressive looking title character. There's never any problem understanding WALL-E's thoughts and emotions. Indeed, when WALL-E does find humanity out among the stars, the sudden appearance of dialogue seems like a bit of a letdown. The humans aren't nearly as interesting as any of the robots. If the film has any problems, and this is really reaching, it's that the human story isn't nearly as sweet as the robot tale. I don't care if humanity ever makes it back to earth, just as long as WALL-E gets the girl-bot in the end. It's an animated family flick, so you can bet on a happy ending, adorable central characters, ‘lots of funny stuff for the kiddies and a solid (though simplistic) science fiction tale for the adults. More importantly, because it's Pixar you can expect great animation, great storytelling and sound design; simply put, another great film. Movie reviews by Sean, “The Movie Guy,” are published Wednesdays and Fridays in “The Port Arthur News.” He can be found weekly on KAVU-TV, KFDM-TV, and KVIC Radio. Additional reviews can be found at www.rottentomatoes.com, www.panews.com or at www.myvictoriaonline.com. Sean welcomes your comments via email at smcbride@kavutv.com.

Last Updated ( Thursday, 26 June 2008 )