The Bauer Confidential

It was the 4th of July, and all of our family and friends are, well, not here in California.  April and I decided to go see WALL-E, and so did about everyone else in town.  I must have forgotten that Independence Day was such a big movie day.  Here is my take on the movie:

Pixar has generated another gem of a movie with WALL-E, arguably one of the best movies Pixar has produced since “The Incredibles,” if not ever.  This movie works as both 1) a sci-fi movie, with a thoughtful story about the effects of complacency, and 2) a cute and adorable romantic movie.  If you can believe that robots have personalities and can fall in love, than you might really love this movie.  The story is strong and somewhat deep, but it works only because the animation is really good.  I mean really, really fantastic.  For example, the movies main robot characters don’t talk, so to convey emotion, the animators have to do a terrific job anthropomorphizing these robots, and they succeed tremendously.

For those who want to know what the movie is about, well here it goes.  We have WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class), a robot whose directive is to clean up earth.  Humans have consumed and polluted the planet to the point that the place has became unlivable so they decided to pack it up and live in an enormous spaceship.  While they’re gone, they leave behind an army of robots to clean up the place, and when they’re done, the humans will return.  Now, 700 years removed, most of the robots have broken down, leaving only one lonely robot to do the work, and work he does.  He compiles trash, compacts it into cubes and piles them higher than most skyscrapers.  During his workday, he collects objects that he finds intriguing, including an old VHS tape of “Hello Dolly,” and watching the people dance and fall in love makes WALL-E long for some sort of contact.  His only companion, and only living creature on the planet it appears, is a cockroach because I assume they can survive any disaster.

The movie eventually moves to the enormous spaceship, because having two non-speaking robots on a lonely planet will only entertain for so long.  We eventually need some sort of conflict.  Here, the romance story is pushed to the back and we enter into a more of A Brave New World type of universe in which robots tend to humans’ every need, and feed their happiness.  Humans have become so self-absorbed in their own happiness, that they become unaware of everything else.  The story shifts a bit to the ships captain, who is awakened to his surroundings and becomes excited when he learns about the history and potential earth could offer him (and the rest of humanity), and WALL-E, along with his “love” interest EVE (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), gives him a reason to return.   It is an interesting story line with a strong message.  Eventually, both stories cross, and WALL-E becomes the most lovable character Pixar has ever dreamed up.