Ticket Stubs

The new Pixar movie, WALL·E, is a great intergalactic love story between two robots while passing along a cautionary message. The movie start out on earth, 700 years after the humans left. WALL·E, which stand for Waste Allocation Load Lifter · Earth (class), is the robot left to pick up the trash left by the humans. The visuals of this futuristic earth are stunning. The mosaics of dull browns and the dusty sunlight remind you of the old science fiction movies. As the movie progresses into space, it shows you the real power of those guys at Pixar. Everything from the ship the humans are on to the outer space dance between WALL·E and EVE, It all looks spectacular. The ending is feel-good, as are all Pixar movies. However, it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. It’s as if you they gave you what you wanted, but now what you expected.

WALL·E is one of the most adorable characters that Pixar has come up with. He may be a mobile trash compacter, but he has this amazing personality. The sounds WALL·E makes gives him that worldly, almost human-like, personality. It’s like watching a cute dog in robot form. You will fall in love with him from the very beginning. WALL·E is the last robot on Earth, here to clean up the garbage left behind by the humans. As he scoops up the trash he builds these skyscrapers out of blocks of trash. Perhaps an allusion to the moments man made before greed took over.

As he WALL·E roams around doing his job of trash compacting, he finds little knickknacks. Little bits and bobs the spark his interest. He’s sort of like your great aunt, the one that loves to collect little doodads that interest her. No one would ever call her what she truly was, a packrat. When he finds something that interests him he brings it back to his lair, a container that used to hold all of the other WALL·E’s. The items range from Christmas lights to a Rubik’s cube. This stuff makes him happy, but he longs for something more. Stashed away in his cave is one of his prized possessions, an old VHS tape of Hello Dolly. He watches it obsessively, hoping to unlock the secrets of being in another’s company. Only part of it may be functional, but he get’s incredible enjoyment out of it. From it, he learns the joys of dancing and holding hands with the one you care about.

WALL·E is out doing his job when a red laser light catches his attention. He follows it to the landing site of a spaceship. Out of the spaceship comes EVE, an Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator. It’s love at first site for WALL·E. After WALL·E shows EVE the plant he found, EVE takes the plant then freezes up and does not move or respond. Later the ship comes back for EVE taking her back to the Axium. WALL·E, not wanting to lose EVE jumps along for the ride.

In the end, WALL·E and EVE need the plant to help the humans get back to earth. After 700 years in space, the humans have become lazy blobs who no longer walk or even stand. They ride around in floating chase lounges and eat an entire meal-in-a-cup. They ride around while talking face-to-face to their friends using a screen mounted a few inches from their face– even if their friends are a few feet away.

"WALL·E" also shows political corruption and greed: The president of the multinational megacorporation Buy-n-Large, which is responsible for the fall of human kind, is also the president of world. He’s played by the wonderful Fred Willard. This movie teaches some great lessons, but avoids becoming preachy. In the end everyone get’s their feel-good ending, despite it feeling a little out of place.

I’d definitely recommend people to go see this film. It’s a wonderful story and has some amazing visuals. It not only keeps your kids entertained, but you’ll get a kick out of it too.