Sunday, June 29, 2008
A+E, In this Issue..., Movies, Reviews

I, ROBOT

Touching ‘WALL-E’ reveals a human heart

By Steve Warren

How bad are things in Hollywood when the most romantic movie of the year so far is an animated story of two robots who fall in love? Of course, the fact that “WALL-E” comes from Pixar is a virtual guarantee of quality. “WALL-E” borrows elements from a recognized science-fiction classic (“2001: A Space Odyssey”) and an unrecognized one (“Silent Running”) to create what may be a new animated classic.

Writer-director Andrew Stanton (“Finding Nemo”) creates a future in which robots serve humankind—but not on Earth. The planet is evacuated about a hundred years from now, with the population sent into space on flying cruise ships, supposedly for five years until the Earth, drowning in trash, gets cleaned up. Seven hundred years later, the ships are still cruising and people, having done nothing for themselves in all that time, have devolved into fat blobs incapable of physical activity. (The unasked question is whether the movie will discourage obesity or encourage robot development.)

The last active robot on Earth, WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class), goes about his programmed duties, collecting and compacting trash. This being an animated film, WALL-E exhibits human thoughts and feelings. His favorite objects are a DVD of “Hello, Dolly!” and a cassette of the soundtrack, which make WALL-E aware of his loneliness—his only friend is a cockroach—and the lack of love in his life.

That is, until a rocket lands nearby and a shiny white robot is left behind. EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) can fly and send out a destructive, explosive ray from her finger, and she makes WALL-E feel like Adam. The two manage to connect on some level, though they don’t have any parts that could endanger the G rating.

But EVE’s mission doesn’t last long: When she finds a plant WALL-E has dug up, a rocket comes to collect her. Not wanting to let her get away, WALL-E clings to the outside of the ship and leaves the Earth behind.

The movie’s second half takes place aboard the mothership, the Axiom, whose captain (voiced by Jeff Garlin) takes an interest in Earth after the discovery of EVE’s plant. A conspiracy puts WALL-E, EVE and the Captain on the same team, and far too much time is spent in chases and other sequences that find one or more of them facing close calls from enforcer robots and such.

It’s a shame to see such a moving, intelligent film reduced to the kind of formulaic sequences lesser movies rely on when they run out of imagination. This isn’t a fatal flaw, but it’s disappointing that the quality has to dip even a little after such a great beginning. (Speaking of great beginnings, there’s a terrific short cartoon before the feature that employs computer animation in service to a plot that could have been used by Warner Bros. back in the day.)

“WALL-E” offers at least partial relief from the sense that all Hollywood movies are made by robots, while giving us hope that when they are, the robots may not be as soulless as the people making them today. 3 STARS