Wall-E

I was very excited about seeing Wall-E for many reasons. The first reason was the superb animation quality in the trailers, which I assumed would be in the film. In addition, the second reason was that this is a Pixar film, a company at the helm of animated beauty and quality, not to mention the humour enough to make both children and adults alike laugh like drains. If Pixar wanted to say that they were the best animation company in the history of cinema, nobody would argue.

Richard Brunton, Filmstalker

“Pixar, a company who have produced some wonderful animated stories that really are filled with personality and humour, humour that doesn’t just appeal to children.”

Plot:

The story of Wall-E is simple yet effective, human beings have abandoned the earth and left robots to clean up the piles of rubbish, and have flown into space to reside in a huge spaceship that resembles a giant cruise liner until the mess has been cleared up. The entire market is controlled by one mega-corporation, whose food milkshakes and hover chairs have turned the human race into gelatinous and boneless “things”.

The opening of the film is harrowingly beautiful, with what appears to be skyscrapers carved with cubes of rubbish, poisonous red dirt, and yellow opaque fog rolling in and out of the dry, arid landscape. Then we see an extreme long shot of Wall-E, happily scurrying about while show-tunes from the musical “Hello! Dolly.” set a sense that this film will be abnormal and quirky, yet a masterpiece nevertheless.

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

“This magnificent animated feature from Pixar starts on such a high plane of aspiration, and achievement, that you wonder whether the wonder can be sustained. But yes, it can.”

Characters:

The characters are in all a lively bunch, ranging from the iPod resembling EVE, with sleek seamless contours and a shiny white plastic exterior (is it a coincidence that Pixar’s co-founder Steve Jobs is CEO of Apple?). Strangely enough, there is a pink cylindrical makeup artist robot used on the human ship to apply makeup quickly although it doesn’t settle just for customers, it applies makeup to anything it sees human or not as Wall-E found out.

Overall, most of the characters are dripping in mechanical cuteness, whether it is huge dark eyes or sweet little beeps or chirps they will all appeal to children, but after all this is Disney and it wouldn’t work any other way. Wall�E seems to be a distant cousin of the robots in 1986’s “Short Circuit”. You can tell from his binocular swivelling head, his cube body and even more bizarre, he doesn’t have any elbows. (Which the team behind Wall-E disputed over for a long time!)

Sukhdev Sandhu, The Telegraph

“I’m focusing on the daring and bravery of the first half of the film because I must confess to feeling a little under whelmed by it’s more conventional, action-led second half. The human beings are too grotesque, shorn of the idiosyncrasies that Brad Bird afforded his baddie restaurateurs in last year’s Ratatouille.”

The less magic bit:

Yes, I am afraid that what Sukhdev from ‘The Telegraph’ says is true; the second half reverts to the adventure filled, less potent and emotive side of children’s cinema and truly shoots itself in the foot. If only they had managed to keep the same magic, the same pizzazz that the first half hour had to offer then this film would be in everyone’s DVD collection.

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