So I am trying to catch up on my movie reviews. Most of my days are spent at the library and at Starbucks' preparing for the bar exam, but I decided early on that I would not sacrifice my enjoyment of the summer movie season. After all, we all need SOMETHING to keep our sanity. As I mentioned in the last post, I have been very impressed with the summer movie season so far. It is a far cry from the horrible season of 2 years ago, and it did not fall victim to having a weak start a la "Spider-Man 3" and "Shrek the Third" last year. This year, the variety of offerings from Hollywood from week to week has been a joy to experience. With the exception of "Speed Racer" and (I hear) "The Happening", Hollywood has been hitting it out of the park. Now, this past Friday, I faced a bit of a conundrum. Two very disparate films were being released. Would I see "Wanted" or would I see "Wall-E"? The solution? See both! I had not taken in a double feature in years, but when I went to buy my tickets, I looked for movie times that were spread out enough for me to go to one and then the other. I then purchased my tickets (yes, I bought tickets for both of my movies as going from one movie to another in a multiplex while paying for only one is something called STEALING). "Wanted" was first on the agenda, and as you may have read here, it was a joy to behold. With 15 minutes to spare, I made my way out of the theater showing "Wanted" and walked 2 theaters down for that screen's showing of "Wall-E". There were a lot of families there, but as is usually the case with Pixar offerings, there were also scores of adults. Pixar has supplanted Disney as the purveyor of perfect animated films. While many other studios view computer animation as a means to an end ("lets put in loads of sight gags and pop culture references with funny animals and make a ton on opening weekend and dvd"), Pixar's artisans craft their stories carefully. The opening stirrings of artistry for any Pixar film are most easily found in the computers of the writers and not the animators. Pixar films all possess "heart", that certain something that touches the emotional cores of the movie going public. This has been evidence mostly in past Pixar successes as the "Toy Story" films, "Monsters, Inc.", and "The Incredibles" (the film that, up until yesterday, was my favorite Pixar film). Yes, I said was, for the crown is now worn by "Wall-E."
So what makes "Wall-E" a special film? I will admit that when I first heard that Pixar was making a film where there would be a relative dearth of dialogue, I was skeptical. It seemed as if Pixar was going to make an arthouse animation film, and I was worried that their track record (already on shaky ground after such lesser efforts as "Cars" and to a lesser extent, "Ratatouille"), would be forever tarnished by some inane glory project from Andrew Stanton. I should have had more faith in Pixar, and I could not have been happier to be wrong. "Wall-E" was a true joy to experience. Yes, I said EXPERIENCE. Within 5 minutes of being introduced to the star of the film, the Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth Class, I was rooting for the little guy. HIs life was one of solitude for 700 years, with his only companion of late being an intrepid cockroach (similar to the cricket from Disney's "Mulan"). Wall-E has a heart and is a sentient robot cheerfully finding beauty in the mundane and carefully living his life. The animators gave him a heart and gave moviegoers someone to cheer for. Wall-E's happy solitary existence comes to an end when the Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator (Eve) comes to the planet. For Wall-E, a fan of the classic musical, "Hello, Dolly," it was love at first sight. Seeing the robot courtship was exceedingly sweet. Who knew that watching animated robots fall in love would be so effecting? About halfway through the film, I realized that I was watching something truly special. I am, at heart, a romantic who has been feeling a bit jaded lately. When one turns on the television or goes to the movies, cinematic depictions of love have slowly given way to cinematic depictions of lust. Where has the romance gone? Apparently, the folks at Pixar went on a quest and discovered its hiding place. The simplest expression of affection, 2 beings in love holding hands, is the be-all/end-all for poor Wall-E. He looks after Eve when she needs it, follows her on a grand adventure to a ship holding the rest of humanity, and changes everything for the better, having an effect on everyone and everything he encounters. Halfway through the film, there was a moment that could have belonged in any Astaire/Rogers or Gene Kelly musical. In that instant, I recognized that I was watching a modern romance classic. I was then wishing that I had gone to the film with a date. Now, there is much about the plot (the deterioration of man, man's trashing of the planet Earth with the help of a global Wal-Mart-type conglomerate, and the lessons that the robots teach the humans) that I could get into, but in the end, it is a wonderful love story. I will also cop to getting teary-eyed a couple of times during the film. I remember thinking "where the heck is this coming from?" And when I realized how much I cared for the characters and how much I was rooting for Wall-E and Eve (who reciprocates in a big way later in the film), I knew that the film had me in its grasp. The film had its share of Apple and "2001: A Space Odyssey" in-jokes, but the heart of the story was Wall-E and Eve's relationship.
In addition to the previously mentioned scene (look for a scene where Wall-E and Eve are in space outside of the Axiom), 2 other scenes grabbed me by the throat. The first scene was when Eve was reviewing her security camera logs while she was indisposed while waiting for pick up. She sees how Wall-E looked out for her and suffered for her, and Eve responds to the videos. It was a beautiful sequence. The final scene that just pushed me over the edge was Eve's panic near the end. I will not share more because to do so might ruin the film for those of you who will see it (and that should be EVERYONE, folks), but the way the scene resolves itself had the audience in my theater cheering and clapping. I kid you not. What a great film. This is, so far, my favorite film of the year. Bravo, Pixar.
This is a perfect date film. Do not see this movie without one!
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4 comments:
Nice review, Artful. OK, so I went to see WALL-E today, and I'd like to share my thoughts, and will happily accept Mr Artful's blasting of my opinion.
So, to start with, WALL-E is by far Pixar's best character that they have developed, character-wise. Animation-wise? No. Sully still takes the biscuit where that is concerned, but extra kudos in winning the character stakes with WALL-E where we are dealing with a character who can say no more than "Eva!".
As an animation movie, again I see WALL-E as succeeding in one part, but failing in another. The background, or dare I say, 'cinematography WALL-E were certainly a Pixar-best. The Earth in this movie is so wonderfully re-created that it makes you lose a breath. The animation of the main two characters just wasn't there for me. Eve's character was very simplistic, and probably purposefully so. WALL-E certainly had his character-traits, but fell well short of the wow-factor that we saw with Sully, and even with Mr. Incredible.
As for the story, again, it wasn't my cup-of-tea, pushing way too much on the stupidity of 'all' men, rather than just the stupidity of the lazy and stupid man. I'm certainly not Mr. Eco-warrior, and the movie pushed too hard on this subject, where it would have done itself more of a service my hinting at these areas.
But overall, it was a better movie for me than Ratatouille, and certainly gave us characters we empathized with, an area where Ratatouille fell quite flat.
WALL-E's character certainly usurped the previous best character development of Mr. Incredible, and without him saying more than one word, this is absolutely an amazing achievement.
For me, the flat point of the movie was the animation itself - I think Pixar struggles with its straight line characters, demonstrated in this movie, as well as Cars. For some reason, it just doesn't 'WOW' me. Still, a solid movie which you should definitely see.
As an aside, the Pixar short before the movie is probably the best they have done, and should definitely pick up the Oscar next year. It's call back to the Warner Bros. cartoons of old was quite simply perfection.
Thanks for your insightful (par for the course, actually) comments, Eddie. Personally, I always find it rather edifying how different viewers have different experiences while watching a film. I mean, the "wow" factor that was present in "Monsters, Inc" was due more to the colorful world envisioned and the "look, we can do fur" algorithm that the Pixar wizards spent a lot of time on. Sully, for the most part, look like a 3-D cartoon. I was more impressed with how Wall-E was animated such that he looked like he could be picking up garbage along Michigan Avenue in real life. Even the cars in "Cars" did not have that level of reality...but that is just my opinion :-)
I also loved the fact that your focus was more on the "we are killing the environment" subtext from the film. I found the subtext to be more of an overall indictment of mankind in that we are becoming the ultimate virus-the environment is just one aspect. Again, though, I was more caught up in the love story more than the "we are all doomed and we reap what we sow" background story. I suppose that is all part of the magic of movies-everyone has a different experience...
Of course, this may also be due to the fact that you have already have found your HASWOE while I am still looking for HASWOA. Hope springs eternal!
I agree with you, Artful, and I thought the love story that was really at the heart of the movie was skillfully done, and should touch even the coldest of hearts. Whether single, dating, married, or something else, you couldn't help but root for WALL-E and Eve's love and happiness. And thinking back, Pixar haven't really managed to pull that off in any previous movies, so more kudos to them.
I re-read my review, and I really don't mean to be bashing the film - I guess I focused on where I thought its weak points lay, 'cause it always seems that with Pixar movies, you start off with absolute perfection, and just need to bring up the points that knock it back a point or two. The things they do well, they always do well, it becomes par for the course. I hinted that I wasn't a fan of Ratatouille, but that doesn't mean that the animation didn't blow me away, I just thought it had dreadful character development, and I kind of hated every character in the film (other than Anton Ego who was simply awesome).
So yeah, I loved the film, I guess my points are more based on why I would give it 9/10 rather than 10/10. Will I get it when it comes out on Bluray? Of course.
Another insightful post, Eddie. You are, of course, quite right. Pixar films start off at such a high quality level that the blemishes are all the more apparent. I was troubled by a few things in the film (the almost lily white/Caucasian make-up of the rest of the human race, the oxymoron of adults never interacting yet there being a full nursery on the "Axiom", etc), but the sum, as you say, is greater than the parts. I suppose your frustration (and mine, having taken a step back into the shoes of a critic) is that Pixar always comes thisclose to making that elusive perfect film, yet it is always something mundane that keeps it from grasping that brass ring.
I must agree with you on "Ratatouille" as well. My review from last year did not touch on your on-point comments about the forgettable characters (save for Ego) but more to the odd choices in story that director Brad Bird made near the end. I mean, I expected more from the man who brought us "The Iron Giant" and "The Incredibles."
Let's hope that Pixar's next film, "Up", is able to grab that ring.
Excellent call, by the way, on comparing "Presto", the short that preceded "Wall-E", with the Warner Brothers classic cartoon shorts. I should have mentioned this brilliant piece of animation in my review. With "Presto", director Doug Sweetland established himself as the spiritual successor to Chuck Jones and especially Tex Avery. After "The Emperor's New Groove" and until "Presto", no other film has come so close to mimicking the "Termite Terrace" style.
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