753. WALL•E (2008)

Starring: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin

Director: Andrew Stanton

Running Time: 98 mins

WALL-E is an American film about a junkyard robot left on Earth to clean up the rubbish left by mankind who voyage out into the stars, however his world is turned upside down when he falls in love with a futuristic probe from the humans named EVE.

Well, the most interesting thing about this film is that it really proves that Pixar can still make a good movie even if it’s not a comedy, because this, except for a hilarious main character and an occasional bit of farce, is a much more dramatic and heavy film than we’ve ever seen Pixar do, and while I think it’s an impressive break for them away from the norm, its overly environmental story really got under my skin.

So, I’ll quickly talk about the big problem with this film that everyone seems to love. I love it too, don’t get me wrong, but the fact that it fell into that horrible trend that I often talk about about all this environmental message after An Inconvenient Truth in 2006 really annoyed me.

The Simpsons Movie did it in 2007, Avatar did it in 2009, and this was 2008’s big environmental blockbuster, and I felt that the message that they were trying to put across about saving the planet was far too heavy and pushy for the overall atmosphere of the film, which is a lot more entertaining, so that was my big issue here.

Anyway, now to the positives, of which there are still so many. Despite my fears of cheesiness at the beginning of the film, I really grew to love WALL-E and EVE, who are a really cute little couple, and their relationship was genuinely very sweet and very interesting to watch unfold, because you’ve got these two robots suddenly becoming very emotional and very human that they completely carry the film on their own (despite having a vocabulary of about two words each).

The story itself is also a lot of fun, while also being dramatic. As I said, there is a mixed atmosphere of heavy environmental messages and an entertaining Pixar film, but I think that the fun prevails, but not too much that the drama that makes this so unique amongst Pixar’s history is lost out, however I really enjoyed the action and excitement of which there was so much in this film.

As ever, being Pixar, the animation is absolutely beautiful in this film. Whether it’s the destitute wastelands on Earth, EVE and WALL-E flying around together, or those stunning space visuals, I was entranced by all that, and it really helped me to forget about the message beneath that was annoying me so much, which I was hugely impressed by.

Overall, this gets a 7.9, because of its amazing visuals, classic characters, and uniquely dramatic story, however it’s just that overly pushy environmental message that really did get on my nerves and slightly spoiled the fun.