Cast (voices): Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Sigourney Weaver

Director: Andrew Stanton

Screenplay: Andrew Stanton

Genre: Animation/Sci-fi/Romance

Running time: 2 hrs



CRITIQUE:


Ever since the honchos of Pixar Animation Studio gathered for a lunch meeting in the year 1994, animated movies have never been the same. Thanks to that celebrated lunch, four ideas were conceived. Three of them have been enduring classics: TOY STORY, MONSTER INC. and FINDING NEMO, all of which are Oscar winners. The fourth of the plethora is the tale of WALL•E, a lonely robot left on Earth to sort out mankind’s rubbish. From that premise alone, it seemed as though Pixar was making a mistake and besmirching its long-running box-office and critical record from the groundbreaking TOY STORY to the remarkable rodent romp RATATOUILLE. Who would want to watch a solitary robot gallivanting around a depressing scenery whose only company is a cockroach and the first hour consist of no audible dialogues other than electronic beep and squeaks? Certainly, not kids.


WALL•E is conceivably Pixar’s hugest risk taken. This is a far cry from the childlike entertainment it normally stamps, and having seen its transformation on screen – this is without a doubt Pixar’s most mature work to date. Its opening sequence shows a constantly overcast Earth, a sepia-clouded wasteland with skyscrapers made out of boxes of compressed rubbish; it obviously tells that this is not a child fare. Such a stunning sci-fi imagery of a dystopian future is like a nihilist’s wet-dream that could have belonged to one Stanley Kubrick, if he were alive, or perhaps Ridley Scott, if he were still making his sci-fi epics. There is no date given; we just know that this is the distant future, and this little fella is the last of its race (most of them have been dilapidated) and humans forgot to turn him off as they left the planet.


For a film that’s rare of dialogue, surprisingly its strength lies on the absence of words. Our main hero is a Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-class, hence WALL•E, and he’s been working on human rubbish for nearly a millennia. His daily routine comprises of compacting waste, and another man’s junk is his treasure. No witty dialogue present but the wit lies of WALL•E’s functions and innocent, wide-eyed wonder (made out of binoculars); from his discovery of a spork to a Rubik’s cube or a brassiere, the film’s at its strongest in characterisation, most whimsical in his frolics, and most charming when he meets the sleek egg-shaped droid EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) and tries to win her company and affection.


And this is where it becomes more affecting. WALL•E is a portrait of loneliness. There is a montage where our hero tries to court an unresponsive EVE; him holding an umbrella for her being struck by lightning, him pleasing her with a Hello, Dolly! tune, him sitting with her in front of a gorgeous sunset. This is amusing, traditional romanticism via Charlie Chaplin with a Woody Allen twist. And its ravishingly loveable. It is funnier and more romantic than twenty romantic comedies combined together.


As soon as the two robots leave the planet and came aboard Axiom, the intergalactic spaceship, we finally see the human counterparts of the film. They resemble like humungous toddlers, fatter and less bone, suspended in hovering chairs with screen media in front of their faces. This, we can assume that we’re not far from this total technology dependency that everything we need is catered for, that we somehow forget to use our basic functions, our hands and feet – let alone our hearts.


Andrew Stanton takes a bold move to provide irony in his robotic creations, so did his clownfish creations, as WALL•E and EVE has more humanity than the rest of the man-species. He does not also ignore the worth of fun present in FINDING NEMO, as the film becomes a rollicking adventure slash human-and-robot rebellion from machine force, reflecting 2001: A SPACE ODDYSSEY (listen carefully to the score music at a crucial finale scene). There’s humour, pathos, intelligence and wonderful heartbreak as soon as mankind comes back to Earth. This is a daring film, and there’s nothing more magical you’ll see in cinema these days than WALL•E with a fire extinguisher and EVE cavorting around in space together, as though in perfect harmonising dance in the air.