Review: To Wall-E, or not to Wall-E?

Wall-E.  Whew – where to begin?  What an interesting and unusual movie.  While I’m not convinced it belongs in the “masterpiece” category that several critics have already placed it in, it’s still quite a movie-making achievement.  If nothing else, it certainly provides much food for thought, which is a whole lot more than you can say about the average summer blockbuster.

I suppose I should first disclose the prejudicial feelings I had toward Wall-E before viewing it.  I had read way back in ’06, rumors that this strange movie was going to be devoid of dialogue and was about a Hello Dolly-loving robot in the future where everyone is so overweight they just float around in cushy flying Lazy-boys.  From the sound of those rumors (which turned out to be pretty much true) I thought Pixar was finally going to burst their own bubble by becoming too cool for school and too self-aware to ever again make a Toy Story or Incredibles. 

Then there was the fact that Wall-E looks and even sounds quite a bit like the robot from Short Circuit.  It’s a robot – they could’ve made him look like anything, so why’d he have to look like #5?  By the way, why are filmmakers so obsessed with humanizing technology?  How many times have we seen robotic characters that end up having more feelings and being nobler than humans?  Are we really that bad?  I just don’t get into the robot-as-human thing.

There was also that initial trailer featuring Andrew Stanton that rubbed me the wrong way with its poetic waxing about the great Pixar “lunch” of 1994 at which the idea of Wall-E was first batted around.  On top of that, I was skeptical about all the advertising which never touched on the touchy fact that all the human characters are grossly overweight and float around on futuristic Lazy-boys.  What I’m getting at is that the signs were pointing toward Wall-E being artsy-fartsy rather than the good old-fashioned Pixar fun that makes a lot of folks look forward to their every project.

So what does Wall-E turn out to be?  It falls somewhere in the middle between artsy and plain fun – which isn’t a bad place to be.  I liked the movie overall.  The primary element that got me past the robot love story (insert eye-roll) was the amazing visuals.  Wow!  It is eye-popping stuff from start to finish.  While we’ve come to expect nothing less from a Pixar movie, this one manages to have a very unique look and feel, probably because of the futuristic setting, but also because of creative touches like the occasional focus shifts that occur, which make it look as if the action’s being shot with a real camera.  If you see it, try to watch it on a digital projection screen to get the most detailed picture.

It’s true, the first half hour or so contains essentially no dialogue, and yet, you’re not bored out of your mind, which is a sign you’re watching a well-constructed movie.  The character of Wall-E is established quickly, efficiently, and entertainingly.  Things get even more interesting when EVE arrives from outer space.  EVE is a sleek, white robot that looks like an Apple product.  No wonder Wall-E immediately likes her.

From there, the odd robo-couple is blasted into space for an adventure aboard the flying cruise ship where all the humans float around in leisure, sort of waiting until it’s safe to return to earth.  It’s at this point that the story sags a little, feeling like one prolonged chase scene.  Plus, you expect to get to know some of the human characters, but you never really do except for the ship’s captain.  Instead, you get to know more robots, who all act more alive than the humans. 

What saves the saggy parts in the movie’s second half are the creative visuals.  The ship is awesome to look at and explore, and there’s always some kind of creative gadgetry doing something interesting.  There is also some humor here and there, though not as much as the average Pixar movie.

Amidst all the visual splendor, there is one questionable creative choice which is that all the video footage of the humans who initially abandoned earth are real humans, rather than animated characters, including actor Fred Willard who plays the CEO of the big corporation that apparently runs the world (note to movie people:  surely there is some big corporation out there that isn’t evil).  It just seemed a strange choice to have real humans in the corporate video segments, but animated humans in the rest of the movie. 

Another minor annoyance is the same sci-fi logic leap that affects a lot of sci-fi movies.  If the movie’s humans have the technology and capacity to build a giant space ship that everyone can live on for hundreds of years, why didn’t they just harness that technology and capacity to get rid of all the trash so they could remain on earth?  It doesn’t make sense.  If nothing else, why not just shoot the trash into deep space where it won’t bother anyone? 

Okay, I need to wrap this up, but I have to comment about the cynical portrayal of the future humans.  Anyone who watches this will immediately see it as a commentary on the American obesity epidemic.  I read an interview with director Andrew Stanton last week in which he said they made the humans all blubbery because NASA told them prolonged space travel causes you to lose bone mass and become blob-like.  There is one very brief reference to that science in the movie, but not until after several scenes of the humans slurping from giant fast-food-like cups, while glued to their multi-media screens.  There’s nothing subtle about it, the humans are entirely sedentary, helpless, and not very bright. 

What’s annoying about this is that none of the filmmakers will step up and admit that they’re commenting on or parodying our culture of obesity.  It makes them seem a little spineless to duck behind the “science” of space travel, when their depiction so clearly emphasizes that the humans are mostly dumb, lazy, and fat because they sit around all the time eating and being entertained.  It’s strange that this iffy aspect was deemed worth the risk, since it wouldn’t have really altered the story to have the humans appear more normal.  Disney/Pixar obviously knew they had something iffy on their hands since all references to it were left out of the promos.  It’d be refreshing to see Stanton and others involved stop tap-dancing around the issue and just admit that it’s an anti-obesity message.      

Well, this “review” has morphed and branched into more of an essay or something, but I guess that’s the cool thing about blogs.  No editors.  No deadlines.  Just tellin’ it like it is, with not too much rhyme or reason other than it’s fun to discuss movies. 

The bottom line is that overall, Wall-E is a very entertaining movie.  I haven’t seen anything quite like it before, and it’s not often that you can say that about a movie.  Other commendable elements are the robotic sounds created by Ben Burtt, and the lovely score by Thomas Newman.  And even though I’m not cool with humanizing technology, Wall-E is a plucky, fun, even sweet character who managed to grow on me.  You should check it out.