Wall-E *****

Director: Andrew Stanton

Year: 2008

Writers: Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Jim Reardon

First 20 minutes are the best post-armageddon film I've seen, Wall-E the robot is like Charlie Chaplin's little tramp character, wandering through the mountains of polluted junk and collecting artifacts of the ancient human culture like a silent film. He collects and appreciates the artifacts of our culture, even if he can't imagine what a bra, a zippo lighter, or spork might be used for, though it doesn't matter, just like the movies he watches on his i-pod magnified through a giant magnifying glass, because they inspire him, and like A.I., the robot longs to be human it seems.

The film also draws on the sci-fi traditions of 2001: A Space Odessy, Blade Runner, THX-1138, Star Wars, and Star Trek. But though it draws obvious visual and thematic connections to these films, it never gets weighed down by refrences, and makes its own unique love story and socially critical sci-fi warning to humanity. Wall-E is not just a robot falling in love with another, slicker, Mac looking robot, EVE, with her sleek white design, but rather it is the love story of a robot who loves human culture and even if unwittingly, saves that very human culture despite its grotesqueness. Wall-E the robot and the film itself have hope in humanity, as personified by the Captain of the space ship Axiom... although we are fat and lazy, sitting in our recliners eating what the megacorporations feed us, and ignoring real life while passing it all staring at a computer screen, and polluting our own planet until it is unsustainable for life... we can turn the ship around, we can protect our home planet and learn to be sustainable so that the beauty of our culture, and the phenomenon of love, which is what makes us human, can continue for many more generations to come.

Excellent film, visually cinematic, with shallow depth of field, focus rolling, and even a hand-held feel to the camera positions at times, the film feels like the shots were selected by a real cinematographer who walked around in the landscape looking for the angles.

Animated story-telling has never been more fully cinematic, a social satire, the core of good sci-fi, and a touching love story all work together to make this one of the best film releases of 2008.