Movie Review - WALL·E

Pixar have done it again. I'm going on the record here, this is THE best movie I've ever seen in my entire life. It's simple, beautiful, enchanting, it has a message & has memorable characters.

Wall-e (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) is a robot. His job is to tidy up rubbish. A very noble cause & even more so when it's all the rubbish we humans left behind before blasting off into the stars to leave The Earth in hope that nature could regenerate itself. And this is Wall-e's (he pronounces it Wally) huge task.

I assume centuries ago there were millions like him (you get to see 1 that has broken down that he scavenges parts from) & they all compacted the rubbish until they broke down, leaving only Wall-e left to continue the job on his own over a period of 700 years during which time he became self aware & developed a persona with only a cockroach for company.

The film looks amazing, Wall-e is based the design of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit, he also has elements of E.T in his persona along with the robots Huey, Lewie & Dewey from Silent Running. If you were to take all the best parts of those movies & put them together then you'd start to get close to Wall-e.

Wall-e is alone until a probe lands on Earth containing Eve (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) who is there to search for life. And what does she do as soon as she encounters a hint of life? She shoots at it. That was the cockroach. And again when she meets Wall-e who falls in love with her and helps her to achieve her mission when he finds a plant growing under the rubbish he clears.

This means Wall-e has to protect Eve from the elements until her ship returns to take her back to the last remnants of Humanity. A society living in complete apathy, reliant on robots for everything and have atrophied to the point where they are even unable to walk or sit up without assistance.

Eventually we find out that 700 years in space have caused this to occur & that the autopilot was given orders never to return to Earth as it was declared uninhabitable. Obviously Eve's return with the plant throws a spanner in the works and we spend a short time having Eve & Wall-e being declared rogue robots, being hunted down for destruction so the Autopilot can cover up that life has returned to Earth.

The film does end with the ship returning the humans to Earth & Eve having to repair Wall-e after it seems he has been destroyed but her repair job is too good and he no longer is aware like before. We do have a happy ending as Wall-e regains his awareness and the Humans decide to help earth rebuild itself and get it green again.

There is a strong message behind this film about pollution and the destruction of the ecosystem but its never rammed down your throat or made to seem preachy. It's done tactfully & thoughtfully and does make you leave the film thinking about the issues. M.Night Shamaylan tried to achieve this in "The Happening" & failed miserably. Perhaps he should take a leaf out of Pixar's book and not try so hard.

A simple film with a very strong idea, an excellent & well thought out plot with a positive message and strong ending all put Pixar's message across very well. As Disney were involved, sadly there are moments of too much saccharine but the very strong film makes these bearable.

I would recommend this to everyone!