Imagine if the waste, toxins and everything people have ever thrown in the trash covers the entire world, making it inhabitable for humans.
Fast-forward to 2700 and you have the beginning setting of Disney and Pixar’s new animation hit “WALL-E.”
Waste Allocation Load Lifter- Earth, also known as WALL-Es, are left on Earth to clean up the tremendous amount of waste left by humans after they departed for a five-year voyage into space.
But all the WALL-Es, except for the star of the movie (Ben Burtt), have broken down within the last 700 years. WALL-E charges himself with solar power. Each morning he mundanely cleans up Earth’s garbage, a mess he did not make. He becomes a packrat with his Playmate cooler, collecting knickknacks with his pet roach, Spot, WALL-E’s only companion.
Suddenly, an Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, also known as EVE (Elissa Knight), blasts her way into WALL-E’s heart. Anyone who has ever fallen for someone who does not share the same feelings can sympathize with WALL-E.
WALL-E becomes a lovesick puppy as he follows EVE around, no matter how many times she blows him up. They eventually establish a semblance of a relationship. WALL-E shows EVE his Rubiks’ Cube, light bulb and a VHS “Hello, Dolly” before he is unexpectedly dragged across the galaxy into her world: The Axiom ship in which humans live.
Pixar’s animation continues to get better each year with every animated movie it distributes. The film showcases unique characters that actors would be hard-pressed to portray on the silver screen. Such characters include humans in the film who have evolved from different physiques to standard sizes of chubbiness, as they have remained stationary in hover chairs for the duration of their lives. Also, EVE’s white, sleek design contrasts well with WALL-E’s dingy yellow box-like appearance when they are floating in space together. The diversity of characters in the film is one of the many reason to go see “Wall-E” after it opens on June 27.
“Wall-E,” written by Andrew Stanton, who also wrote Disney’s 2003 hit “Finding Nemo,” does an unbelievable job of showing characters with depth considering that there is no dialogue for the first-third of the movie, though it is not entirely silent until this time.
Disney and Pixar’s latest film is filled with songs from the movie’s soundtrack and robotic and natural sounds. The lack of dialogue for the majority of “WALL-E” only adds to the great animation because moviegoers have to watch it to understand and see the humor and themes that would normally be told through speech. The human characters, for example, such as Captain (Jeff Garlin), Mary (Kathy Najmy) and John (John Razenberger) communicate, but do not have much to say.
A plot line to keep in mind during “WALL-E” is that everyone performs a duty for which each character is meant, whether it is M-O (Burtt), who cleans Axiom or Auto, (Sigourney Weaver), the ship’s autopilot. The conflict arises when characters realize their duties may not be what they were previously told, so they change these duties to serve the function for which they were meant.
For WALL-E and EVE, it is a story of love overcoming the obstacle of work, whereas Captain, Mary and John try to think for themselves so that the robots do not do all the work.
While “WALL-E” may imply that humans are wasteful gluttons who only care about commercialism, the film tells a story that has something for everyone.
Maybe at the end of “WALL-E,” moviegoers will want to reach out and hold someone’s hand. The movie is that touching.
