The TV Addict 

Every now and then you come across a film that reminds you exactly why you go to the movies in the first place. Why you time after time invest two hours of your life to be transported to other worlds, hoping that you will become emotionally wrapped up in them. Hoping to find a character whose emotional world you’re so invested in that every step he or she takes feels like your own. Hoping, above all else, for the sheer joy a movie can provide us. With more joy, more emotion in every frame than anything else you will see this year, WALL-E is exactly why we go to the movies.

WALL-E is an advanced garbage compactor, the last of his kind left behind on earth hundreds of years ago to clean up the post-apocalyptic garbage wasteland created by a consumerist society run amok. Day after day WALL-E sees his directive through but not without his own unique touch: a personality. He’s a curious fella, collecting knick-knacks, and tucking them away in his home. It doesn’t take us long to realize though that WALL-E is a lonely little guy, one who longs for the grand romance he finds in the musical numbers of the video of HELLO,DOLLY he watches so often. Sure enough when a much more sophisticated robot, EVE, shows up on Earth to test its habitability, our little hero falls adorably in love, and a chain of events occur that remind us to what lengths that emotion can push us to.

In many ways it seems as if WALL-E was the product of a dare. It’s as if somebody said to Pixar: “Bet you can’t make a great film and character with barely any dialogue.” Well, Pixar accomplished just that. WALL-E is such a phenomenal film because of its central character, whether he can talk or not. He is not only one of Pixar’s most endearing characters, he may just be one of the most enchanting ones I’ve ever come across in a film. I can think of few times where I was so enthralled by a character, so deeply invested in his emotions and goals, and so full of warm fuzzy feelings when they are realized. His journey made me laugh, aw, and even cry (a little).

Sure, one could argue that in some ways Pixar did perhaps too good of a job with its central character. After spending the first half of the film alone with WALL-E and being charmed by his Buster Keaton like antics, I was almost unwilling to give him up to the more character populated second half, and its more story-centered developments. Especially since it feels in some ways rushed, and even pervaded by a sense of obligation. That also results in the possible complaint that aside from a surprisingly biting vision of where our over indulgent consumerist society may lead us, WALL-E’s story is one of the lighter ones Pixar has produced. If you’re looking for the dramatic depth of FINDING NEMO, THE INCREDIBLES, or RATATOUILLE, you’re not going to find it here.
Those complaints may be valid, but in the scheme of things I’m not sure they matter because in the end film isn’t so much interested in heavy drama. It’s interested in fun, and the second half undoubtedly is. In fact there’s never a moment when I wasn’t having watching this film, when a pervasive sense of joy wasn’t constantly supporting the muscles keeping my face in a permanent grin.

What also helps is that the film never forgets what it’s about. At its very core it’s not really about story. It’s an exercise in pure, undiluted emotion and the complexity of human connection, which is represented in its heights form: love. The film is filled with love. Like WALL-E it’s propelled by it, just like the hyperbolized romances of Hollywood musicals of old, yet here it feels so genuinely real and romantic. That’s never more apparent to me than a sequence where WALL-E and EVE “dance” together. There’s more genuine romance in that one scene than most of the romantic comedies I’ve seen in the last few years. It’s scenes like those and many others that make your heart swell to two times its original size by the time you walk out of the theatre. If it doesn’t, you may just be The Grinch.

To put it more plainly, and to paraphrase a famous movie tagline: you will believe (and care) that a robot can love. The fact that Pixar succeeds in accomplishing that with a robot with a vocabulary of roughly five words is astounding. It’s why WALL-E is not only one of Pixar’s best films to date, it’s undoubtedly one of the best films of the year.

Overall rating: A