Review of WALL·E (2008) by Cj W — 01 Jun 2014

Wall-E is in my opinion, the greatest animated film ever made, it has a broader scope and more depth than any blockbuster these days. So much so, that I.

Have now seen the film 5 times in 2 weeks, and I still don't know if I can adequately review it. It truly is one of the most interesting, and haunting visions of humanity's future ever put to the screen. To think that humanity could be so far gone that robots actually act more like humans than humans do, is just horrifying. However, Pixar manages to weave in a heartfelt and uplifting message amidst a harsh social criticism of the way we live our lives. The first thirty minutes of this film basically has no dialogue, but is filled with endless characterizations, and explain Wall-E and Eve better than most films can explain their characters throughout the whole film. You find out that Wall-E harbors very human characteristics like love, attachment, friendship, loss, sadness, happiness, rhythm, and maybe most of all, he can feel hope. This is displayed when Eve breaks his VHS, he fixes it, and waits tentatively for it to work again. But then it is also displayed when Eve is rendered lifeless by her own programming, he patiently waits by her side, protecting her from everything, in hope that she may return to life. And Eve is allowed to feel the same human things as Wall-E, but it may only be because she has had exposure to Wall-E's overwhelming goodness, and his rare association with Earth. This film is so much like all the great live action films that have such a broad scope, not everything is explicitly stated, much is left for our minds to ponder about and interpret from our own perspective. After the silence of the first thirty minutes, everything turns into utter chaos, exposing different elements of what lead to humanity's demise, as well as giving us the most imaginative look at the horrors of corporate greed, human apathy, consumerism, ecological destruction, and also, misused technology. But Wall-E is not just magnificently conceived and written, it is visually astonishing, the visuals are so well crafted that this film doesn't even need dialogue, each frame tells us the story of this picture, and could engage your eyes enough to just look at for an hour and a half. Honestly, it is Pixar's most visually significant and poetic film to date. To finish up, although Wall-E has a very bleak outlook on the future, and spends most of the film showing us how bad everything could get, it ultimately is an affirmation of the human spirit, but it does so in the most unconventional way, by giving us one of the most human characters ever put to the screen, however, he just so happens to be a robot. And I can't forget to say that Wall-E and Eve's relationship is one of the most heartwarming and special relationships ever visually and conceptually conceived. If you haven't seen Wall-E, you are really missing out.