WALL-E

It’s safe to say that Pixar Animation Studios has hit one out of the park yet again with 2008’s charming and beautiful WALL-E. This is the best film I’ve seen all year. Gorgeously animated with a delightful story, this film’s depiction of a very realistic future and a robot romance had me enthralled from the beginning.

The film takes place 800 years in the future, give or take, as a mega-corporation called Buy ‘n Large has taken over every single economic service on Earth. They even run the government. The planet has been overrun by un-recycled waste and, as such, all of the human beings have taken off into space to live on “Executive Starliners.” These ships house people and supply them with everything to meet their needs, leading to massive tubbiness, laziness, and lack of interest in anything human.

Back on Earth, we meet WALL-E. He’s an acquiescent robot tasked with cleaning up the planet. Unfortunately for WALL-E, he’s the last of his kind and he spends his days wandering around and piling up garbage in neatly organized piles. The Earth is still covered in trash and WALL-E certainly has his work cut out for him. Enter EVE, a feminine robot dropped off on Earth to discover plant life and to head off a return for the human beings to their home planet. WALL-E is instantly besotted with his new arrival.

The rest of the film follows the adventures of WALL-E and EVE as they’re taken back up to the largest Executive Starliner, the Axiom, and try to get things moving on the path back to Earth. Naturally, EVE and WALL-E fall in love. It’s interesting to note that one of the best romantic comedies of the year so far happens to involve robots, very little dialogue, and Pixar’s exquisite computer animation. Go figure, huh?

There is most certainly an agenda to this film. The environmental aspects are hard to ignore, as the planet’s loss of human life is an evocative but all-too-real notion. The way WALL-E is framed in the foreseeable course of our actions is wonderful and it gives the storyline some credence. To further this initiative, humanity’s becoming corpulent and relying utterly on machines in the future is another undeniable point that should be addressed by us now. If we continue to live lives of overindulgence and waste, worlds like those presented in WALL-E may not take 800 years to reach us.

Alongside the heart-rending message of the future of Earth lies a genuinely emotional romance. The relationship between WALL-E and EVE is so affectionate, so sweet, and so endearing that it becomes the hinge by which everything else in the film is moved. The altruism with which the robots act is excellent; we should be so lucky to feel such prevailing love for one another.

I don’t need to tell you that Pixar’s animation is incredible here. The visuals of space, for instance, are simply awe-inspiring. As the ships crash through the hillock of satellites and head through to the unknown stars beyond, I couldn’t help but be overtaken by a sense of wonder only paralleled by the greatest documentary space footage. The animation is so lifelike and so genuine that it’s hard to tell the difference between what’s real and what isn’t. The pudgy animation of the human beings is a nice touch in contrast to the sharper edges of the robot delegation.

There are detractors, to be sure. Most of the opinions referenced against the foundations of this film come with a political bent and that’s a shame. To listen to some jackass like Glenn Beck rail against the film for having an “ecological message” or to read New York Post writer Kyle Smith’s comments that the film “insults obesity” just goes to show how easy it is for conservative dummies to miss the message of a beautiful film.

WALL-E is a delight. It is the year’s first perfect film. Its message about love, understanding, humanity, and compassion shouldn’t be ignored. And its warnings about overdependence on technology and overabundance of waste shouldn’t be either.

Trailer: