Quick Movie Review: Wall-E

I love film. I love TV. I love music. I love books. I spend a lot of time on each of these loves (books somewhat less) and I receive a great amount of joy from them. However I can not remember the last time any form of media left me in such a daze of happiness as Pixar's latest instant classic, Wall-E. Going in I had some concerns as it came from the Finding Nemo director and that's one of my least favorite Pixar flicks. After, oh about 30 seconds, those fears were gone. Of course the standard Pixar praise applies; beautiful animation, breathtaking cinematography, perfect characterization and so on. The real gem of this movie though is its heart. My god this film completely removes you from reality and you spend an hour and a half hanging on every beep and buzz our lead robots give us. While they are doing this though you are getting many messages to pick out from the film, from the environmental aspect to the modernization facing our world. Then there’s the fact that this is a classic take on a dark sci-fi future. Dark in Pixar? Oh hell yeah, just wait to see you the horrible future the film depicts. Don’t worry though, there are laughs too, so many, so continuous that it’s hard to count. My partner loved the “mental ward” for robots, as it was almost spot on to their human counterparts. I loved the physical comedy that evoked Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. The lack of dialogue is never noticeable as you honestly feel like you understand every whirl and click out of Wall-E and Eve. Lastly there are tears too. Tears about hope, life, and…well…see the movie. The Incredibles is one of my favorite films of all time and easily my favorite Pixar movie but right now Wall-E is making a serious challenge to that and it’s easily my top film of 2008.