Wall·E

After returning home from my trip to the Far East last night Karrie and I went to see Wall·E, a movie I had been waiting to see ever since I saw the first teaser trailer for it.

As usual with Pixar films, the movie was preceded by a Pixar short film.  In this case it was Presto, which features a magician and his hunger-panged bunny Alec.  It was one of the best Pixar shorts I’ve seen; it’s right up there with Lifted.  The movie began with an impressive title sequence that reveals what has already been hinted at in the previews: the Earth has been overused and subsequently abandoned by humans.  A lone robot, our hero Wall·E, now roams around performing his programmed directive: compacting and disposing of garbage.

Wall·E reminds me a bit of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit, both in looks and in the fact that he has somehow overcome his original programming and developed emotion. 
He lives in some sort of storage container where he collects various bits of garbage that he finds interesting.  When he enters his home, he even takes off his treads!  When he comes out of sleep mode in the morning, he acts groggy until he pops out his solar panels and recharges.  Scenes like this show how a movie that largely lacks dialogue can still be compelling.

If you like Pixar movies in general, you should love this one.  I put it right up there with Finding Nemo and Ratatouille, even though this movie is quite different from both of those.  In fact, Andrew Stanton — who directed and wrote Finding Nemo — also directed and co-wrote Wall·E.  Another fun fact about the movie: Ben Burtt — who is responsible for most of the sound effects for Star Wars and provided vocals for R2-D2 — provides the vocal foundation for Wall·E.  But I digress.  The visuals were stunning, the sounds enveloping, and the story was truly great.  I highly recommend this movie.

Rating (out of 4):