| Posted by: Monotreme at July 13, 2008, 4:23 am | | Topic: Wall-E Review Forum: JoBlo | | (Andrew Stanton, 2008) Pixar, the most consistent, relentlessly creative, risk-taking, and high-quality film studio in Hollywood today, never cease to amaze me. Save for a few exceptions here and there along the way (such as Cars), they have been on a constant incline in quality over the years, with every subsequent film topping the last: Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille. Each film is not only one giant leap ahead in the world of animation, providing new, revolutionary advancements in animated film technology – be it the fur in Monsters, Inc., the water effects in Finding Nemo or the realistic anamorphic lens effects in Ratatouille – but also an increase in quality, depth of story, characters, and everything else. With WALL·E, Pixar bring us their latest, their crown jewel, their masterpiece, and which is, as of Summer 2008, not only the best film they’ve produced but also the best film of the year. This film actually serves as an important landmark for Pixar, not only for its technological advancements in realistic anamorphic lens photography and space physics and effects or for being the first Pixar movie to feature live action elements. All of Pixar’s previous movies (except for Cars, which exists entirely in a universe of its own), although taking place in the real, human world, feature some kind of fantasy element in them; be it living toys, talking animals, a parallel monster universe, or the existence of super-heroes. WALL·E, on the other hand, is their first film that takes place completely and entirely within the realm of the real human world reality, albeit 700 years in the future. Much like The Incredibles, WALL·E could have theoretically been made as a live action movie, and would have no doubt turned out as an extremely powerful science fiction epic, but naturally, much of the film’s charm is based on its being animated. The animation itself is absolutely stunning. Pixar have perfected the craft of recreating realistic live-action photography in animation. Depth of field, out of focus objects, zooms – the look is spot-on. The animators also employ a wonderful colour palette, with enough variety and richness to keep things colourful and lively but also remaining very much rooted in reality. But really, the animators won me over right off the bat when, looking closely, I noticed tiny specs of dust floating around in the air during the opening scenes set around the garbage skyscrapers. With such a devoted attention to detail to make everything as realistic as possible, it’s no surprise that Pixar are the leading studio for computer-animated films. But the truly incredible feat the film achieves in its animation is character design and animation. Going back to the traditions of Disney, the animators faced a tough challenge, which was giving characters emotion using as little gestures as possible. In this case, our protagonist is a box-shaped robot with treads and binoculars for eyes. But the amount of emotion and character this little box emanates is an astonishing testament to the animators: he’s not just a cute-looking little robot, but a cute-looking little robot with a personality. Right from the opening shots of the film we are won over by WALL·E’s cuteness and irresistible charm. He brings a little lunchbox with him to work in which he collects all sorts of trinkets and treasures from the endless sea of garbage covering our planet. He treads indifferently past a graveyard of hundreds of long-deactivated WALL·E units – the last of his kind. At home, it’s his little pastimes that keep him happy: adding today’s lunchbox content to the revolving shelves containing all his treasures, spending time with his little cockroach friend, watching his favourite movie, “Hello, Dolly!”, on his iPod – after 700 years, imagine how many times he must have seen it. The film’s true emotional punch, though, arrives along with its second main character, the heavenly robot EVE, who looks pretty much like something Apple would design 700 years in the future. On paper, two robots falling in love is a concept that shouldn’t possibly work. It’s quite mind-boggling then, and an incredible testament to director Andrew Stanton and the entire creative team really, that it works so exceptionally well in the film. It is difficult to use terms like this when it comes to robot characters, but the amount of human emotion displayed in this film is astonishing. If WALL·E wasn’t cute enough based solely on his trinket-collecting antics, his robotic perfectionism and his film appreciation, then his shaky, nervous falling-in-love with EVE is absolutely heart melting. He’s neurotic and shy and at first EVE doesn’t seem to notice him, but eventually he wins her over and magic begins. I was nearing tears in the scene where WALL·E takes EVE home and excitedly shows her all of the things he’s collected, climaxing with his rendition of a musical dance scene from “Hello, Dolly!” using a garbage can lid as a top hat – I just couldn’t handle it, it was beguilingly adorable. Indeed, the risks and sacrifices these characters are willing to make for one another in the name of love are on such an epic scale, this film may go down in history as one of the great Romantic films. Then, there is the film’s sci-fi aspect, underneath which hides a very strong cautionary message. The sci-fi concept of the formation of one giant corporation, which tailors to all of mankind’s needs and services, eventually getting all of mankind on a perpetual vacation in a massive interstellar cruise ship while at the same time continuing the environmental destruction of our planet to the point where return to Earth is impossible, is very original and quite fascinating on its own. It certainly serves as an interesting contrast and a fresh approach to the usual dystopian, post-apocalyptic depiction of Earth we’ve been used to seeing lately. I loved how the movie didn’t shove its environmental message down the audience’s throats, but rather simply displayed a possible outcome of this path we are slowly going down without directly portraying that our current environmental conduct is what led to it. For many reasons, WALL·E is a crowning cinematic achievement and the peak of Pixar’s output so far. It’s entertaining, thrilling, tense and of course absolutely hilarious. It is a technological wonder and a landmark achievement in animation. It provides us with both food for the mind, with its powerful environmental, future of mankind message; and food for the heart, with its touching, charming, wondrous, beautiful story of two very different robots falling in love. The emotion, the characters, the drama, the humour, the technical execution – WALL·E excels in every possible field. And that it is animated, a genre in which producing shallow, simple material is extremely easy, and features very little dialogue portraying all its emotion and drama visually, makes it all the more special. RATING: 9/10. |
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