WALL-E

On the surface, Pixar’s newest feature looks like a cute comedy about an odd little robot in outer space. But beneath the seemingly facile façade lies a wonderfully subversive and surprisingly poignant environmental film with subplots involving conformism, idealism, loneliness, isolation, true love and the overwhelming swell you can feel in your heart just by watching a little metal box yearn to hold the hand of his beloved.

I loved it.

Set in the future, the film opens on a desolate, deserted Earth, that has been completely engulfed in garbage and waste. Humans fled the planet some 700 years prior, and the only “living” thing left is WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class), a rusty, square, hard-working little robot whose sole purpose is to scoop up garbage and compress it into cubes like a trash compactor. Based on his surroundings, WALL-E has been performing this task for a very, very, very, very long time.

But WALL-E also has a super-endearing personality. He bleats his name. He’s entirely self-sufficient. He’s filled with hope and wonder. He loves collecting treasures – strange, unusual, colorful everyday items like a discarded Rubik’s cube or bobblehead doll or frilly brassiere – which he stores in his “house” (a shipping container). His best friend is a resilient and massively adorable (silent) cockroach. Together they brave the violent weather of Earth’s unstable atmosphere, and the profound loneliness that comes from being the only two beings on it. They forage, they scavenge and they watch a battered VHS copy of the 1969 version of Hello, Dolly! over and over again on a ratty VCR. You see, WALL-E is also a hopeless romantic, and he longs for the connection he watches onscreen. WALL-E wants love.

Enter EVE – Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator – a sleek, modern, pristine, egg-like aerodynamic reconnaissance drone sent to Earth in search of signs of sustainable living. She’s looking for anything leafy and green that might mean humans (who have since been relegated to orbiting the galaxy in an enormous floating city called Axiom) can finally return to the planet after centuries in self-imposed exile. One look at EVE, who’s kind of the robotic equivalent of Angelina Jolie, and WALL-E is smitten. When EVE stumbles upon WALL-E’s latest treasure – a tiny sprout discovered amid the debris – she’s instantly summoned back to the mothership and a lovestruck WALL-E hitches a ride. 

That ride reveals what humans have become over the centuries – FAT. Lives of sloth and reliance on convenience has turned the human race into a sea of blobs...literally. Men, women and children no longer walk (they exist on hovercraft chairs that move them from point A to B), they eat nothing but fast food and they have shapeless limbs and no muscle tone, making them look not unlike Weebles. They don’t interact with each other, but are all hooked up to audio-video displays – think Facebook of the Future. All this to say, humanity kind of blows.

But WALL-E and EVE’s arrival on the Axiom also unleashes a world of other robots, all of whom are insanely cute and funny and clever. From the OCD cleaning ‘bot to the giant gatekeeper of the bridge, they’re all unique and serve a very distinct purpose in the story...which, from here, basically follows the struggle over whether to return to Earth and, if so, how? Everyone and everything has their own reasons for wanting to stay in oblivion or charting a course for home, and it’s an all-out battle to see who gets control of the wheel.

What I’ve written above is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg of awesome that is WALL-E. Like its Pixar predecessors, the film is blessed with fantastically developed characters, glorious art direction and a magnificently smart screenplay...which is almost completely devoid of dialogue. Yet even with characters who say little more than their own names, the story unfolds loaded with complexity, emotion, mood and action. There’s never any question what WALL-E is feeling or why, and whatever reactions are elicited from the audience come in the truest way: from a story that’s shown rather than told. 

To that end, the filmmakers have also done a terrific job of making an environmentally conscious movie without ever saying so. At no point does WALL-E become a Message Movie where the audience is beaten over the head with A Moral until they scream “uncle!” (um, The Happening? I’m looking at you...). No one has to draw a picture for viewers: we get it. From the brief opening shot of the planet Earth surrounded by a debris field of trash, we get it. Subtly. 

Honestly, I could go on ad infinitum about all the great things to be found in the 98-or-so minutes of this movie. I laughed out loud often, I teared up (I dare you not to cry at least twice!), and I truly think the love story between WALL-E and EVE will go down in cinema history for its unbearable charm.

An outstanding piece of filmmaking, WALL-E will delight audiences of all ages and, though it’s only the end of June, will likely wind up in my top-three movies of 2008...if not #1.