REVIEW: Wall-E

Although I've already watched Wall-E not a few months ago, it was just some terrible bootleg- and I rarely tolerate crappy bootlegs- so now that Wall-E's DVD is almost here, there's probably bound to be some excellent bootlegs. And yeah, we have one and I watched it again. Frankly, it's better the second time around because of said quality boost, and the in-jokes I missed are now pretty darn clear which is why i'm only reviewing this movie just now. So without further ado, I give you my review of Wall-E.

Littered with iconic moments and oozing with imagination and slapstick, Wall-E is a testament to how powerful actions are from words, cliché it might sound. The first 30 minutes of the whole shebang will attest to that where personality rings in every little frame despite the lack of dialogue.

The latter part falls short of the Chaplin-esque power of the first half-hour, but more of the antics, I think, that are reminiscent of that part may probably ruin the whole movie without getting its message across, so I guess I won't bash this fact much.

Still, just the fact that Pixar struck gold with their goal of putting emotions in the robots is something impressive. But contributing most to that feat is Ben Burtt's sound design which provides the voices of the robots. I mean, from a man who made R2D2 a likeable character, I'd expect as much.

Story-wise, Wall-E does pretty good. Basically it's about a robot who compacts trash (have you noticed that Pixar loves trash compactors?) and develops a personality after watching Hello Dolly every day. Hey, he's the last robot on Earth and it's been 700 years since the humans left for outerspace; anything could happen. Anyway, you see him going about his usual business of collecting items of interest and compacting the rest of the garbage until he finds a plant. This leads to EVE looking for said plant, but Wall-E doesn't know this and falls in love at first sight. This sparks a series of events that put Wall-E in outerspace.

Still, when you look at it in another perspective, you'll see that it discusses more complex topics not meant for a kid's movie, most especially consumerism. I mean, just looking at it skin-deep already yields a lesson about the environment, what more if we dissect it further? Really, I think this is gonna be the kind of movie that's gonna be made mandatory for viewing by film students.

But you know what my only gripe with this movie is? PRODUCT PLACEMENT. More specifically, Apple. You'll hear the start-up tone after Wall-E charges his battery, you'll see Wall-E using a post-apocalyptic iPod to watch Hello Dolly. I know that as an Apple fan I shouldn't actually mind at all, but I'm just bothered, and I feel that it dampens the consumerism issue it tries to discuss.

So what else have I to say that's already been said? The visuals, the score, the characters... I don't see anything else wrong with the movie to be honest, but it's not quite my favorite Pixar movie. There's one question left in my mind, though: How did that plant survive?

RATING: 9.3/10

Posted with LifeCast