Review of WALL·E (2008) by Douglasw — 20 Nov 2008
The core of this movie was a love story, which is highly dependent on character and chemistry. This movie had neither. Previous Pixar films had three-dimensional, well-rounded characters like Woody and Buzz, but I just didn't get that from these robots.
Of course the writers made their job more difficult by not using any dialog. As for chemistry, for WALL-E they gave absolutely no reason for falling in love other than "love-at-first-sight," despite the fact that his love interest was an emotionless (and in the beginning sex-neutral) probe interested only in carrying out its mission, and blowing everything else up.
The writers also gave EVE very little reason to come around to WALL-E. Finally, we have the whole problem of accepting a love affair between two machines. If this movie was presented solely as a fantasy (like most of Pixar's movies) than we can accept human emotions from anything.
In a fantasy its fine if a toaster falls in love with a rock (or a toy befriends a toy). But I felt this movie presented itself more as science fiction. In that context, you want your robots to make sense.
If EVE and WALL-E were suppose to be highly complex robots with brains approaching those of humans (e.g. in I, Robot) than maybe we can accept some emotion from them. But one was a trash compactor, and the other a probe.
Why is a trash compactor scared? lonely? happy? It doesn't make sense. Sure the animation was brilliant, but if I couldn't buy into the love story aspect of this film, everything else falls flat.
This review of WALL·E (2008) was written by Douglasw on 20 Nov 2008.
WALL·E has generally received very positive reviews.
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