WALL*E

Animated; written and directed by Andrew Stanton
**** (four stars out of four)

Perfect animation, raw emotion, bitter satire, and charming eloquence are perfectly woven together to create the film of the year. Andrew Stanton’s main character, Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class (WALL*E), provides a peak into the intricacies of true love, a bold curiousness, and Stoogian slapstick humor that keep things just light enough, while Stanton depicts the haunting dystopia that is the future earth. Kids giggled, Kubrick fans marveled, and most importantly, people left the theatre questioning themselves.

An unconventional setting for a children’s film, the movie begins by painting a picture of what has become of planet earth. Taken over by pollution, caused undoubtedly by bulk consumerism (represented by lone corporate giant Buy N Large, who also plays the role of world government), the earth has been reduced to skyscraping stacks of garbage cubes, neatly compacted by the film’s protagonist, WALL*E. Seven hundred years prior, humans had left the planet courtesy of BNL’s spaceship, Axiom, for what was intended to be a five year cruise through space, while millions of WALL*Es cleaned earth. The last one standing, accompanied by his good-natured cockroach companion, goes about his droning, repetitive daily routine, before heading back to his robot bachelor pad, where he hordes various items he finds intriguing (a lighter, a Rubik’s cube, and plastic utensils). His prized possession is a tape (which he watches daily) of the film Hello, Dolly!, which serves as his courting instruction manual, and teaches him one of the purest forms of emotional expression, holding hands.

As loneliness is taking its toll, WALL*E then meets his eventual love interest, EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetative Evaluator). Although she tries numerous times to blow him to smithereens, WALL*E is immediately smitten. Stanton brilliantly characterizes the film’s heroine as she goes from ruthless robot, to warm, caring soul, through nothing but interaction with our hero. EVE comes to earth with a directive, and is programmed above all else, to find flora and return it to her Axiom superior. From there, the film follows the journey of WALL*E and EVE, as they slowly become a futuristic version of an outlaw couple (ala Badland’s Kit and Holly) in their effort to bring humanity back ‘home’.

Pixar’s latest (and most compelling) creation is littered with scathing social commentary as humans on Axiom are presented in a way that is jaw-dropping and perhaps not too far-fetched. Swallowed by technological comforts, humans are overcome with laziness and obesity to the point that they have lost the ability to walk, and are rather transported by hovering, space-aged Lay-Z-Boys. Stanton offers a glimmer of hope in two human characters on Axiom, John and Mary. United by WALL*E, they eventually look up from their computer screens for the first time, only to discover the wonder and mystique of the stars, and then, each other. One of the most honest, and unique love stories since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, WALL*E reminds us that love is man’s (or robot’s) directive. -Raj Sagar