Hybrid cartoon

Day 2 of my week of movies rolls on as I saw the latest entry from the folks at Pixar yesterday. After the underwhelming Ratatouille, Pixar has rebounded nicely with the beautiful WALL-E. This is an amazing piece of animation that at times makes you forget you're actually watching a cartoon.

WALL-E is about a trash compacting robot who is left to clean up a now uninhabitated Earth. One day he comes across EVE, a robot sent to analyze the planet's conditions. WALL-E quickly becomes smitten with EVE, or at least as smitted as robots can be. Without giving too much of the plot away, the two embark on an adventure that could potentially save the planet and make it safe to live on again.

What is surprising about this film is that it actually has a very strong political message. Themes of environmentalism and activism are very prevalent, although they're likely lost on the younger audience. I wasn't bothered by it, especially since it's a positive message for all of us to remember, but it was surprisingly nonetheless. The folks at Pixar have never really been this political before, so it will be interesting to see if this trend continues or if they just felt it fit nicely in with the story they were trying to tell here.

While the themes of the film may catch people off guard, what's not shocking is the quality of the animation. Pixar continues to raise the bar with each film they produce as it relates to the animation. The textures are rich and precise, the action is seemless, the characters finely detailed; everything is just a wonder to the eyes. And because a large portion of the film takes place on the uninhabitable Earth, there is a gritty, realistic feel to the movie. A lot of the landscape made it seem like this was any other live action postapocalyptic film.

There is one new element added into the animation here; live people. There are a few scenes which actually show video of real human beings. For instance, WALL-E is seen watching a video of Hello Dolly. Even more interesting is Fred Willard doing a cameo as the CEO of a large Wal-Mart-like corporation. He speaks via video to the captain of the ship that is currently housing all of the remaining Earthlings. This was an odd choice because the rest of the human beings are computer animated. I'm not sure why they decided on this break in continuity, but it didn't really negatively affect my opinion of the film; especially because Fred Willard's brief appearance provides some decent laughs. I'll be curious to see if they continue blending live action and computer animation in their future films.

As I just mentioned, Fred Willard's character does provide some humorous moments in the film. But sadly, there isn't a whole lot more laughs beyond that. That's not really a fault of the script though. This film is a bit more serious and focused on the "love story" between WALL-E and EVE. So while I would have liked a few more laughs, they probably would have negatively changed the tone of the film. WALL-E's antics do provide some smiles, but this isn't like Toy Story where you have characters constantly wisecracking.

Having a film try to create a love story between two robots could have been extremely difficult, but the Pixar people manage to pull it off. Even though these robots have a very limited vocabulary, they are still able to communicate with each other and to the audience the connection they've formed. You'll become invested in these character and want to see them succeed in their quest. It's the mark of a good film when you can ignore the absurdity of a premise like robots establishing a relationship and simply get wrapped up in good storytelling.

For adults, I'm not sure if this one has the replay value that some of the other Pixar films have. As much as I enjoyed this, I'm not going to make any special effort to see it again. Kids, of course, are different and will likely gobble this up with a spoon like they do with most computer animated films. But everyone should do themselves a favor and at least see this once. Since this will be arriving on DVD soon, you'll probably really enjoy this if you have a quality television to play it on. Once you watch it, you'll agree with me that Pixar has created yet another masterpiece that they can add to their ever-growing library. Grade: A-