WALL-E (2008) *****

By Rebecca Stewart

Cast: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, MacInTalk, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver
Writing Credits: Andrew Stanton (original story and screenplay), Jim Reardon (screenplay), Pete Docter (original story)
Classification: Australia G | US G | UK U
Run time: 98 minutes
Director: Andrew Stanton

Pixar are good at family films. They provide a great entertainment mix - a story appealing to their target audience (children) with enough story and witty one-liners to keep adult chaperons entertained. And, while not all of their films have been taken as instant classics, they have still been very, very good. So, with all this behind them, as well as a successful merge with Disney, Pixar brings us WALL-E, a film that, for the renowned animation company, is out of left field, leaving us wondering if Pixar still know what they’re doing.

This doubt is pushed so far back within the first few minutes that we are left wondering if that doubt was ever there or if it were imagined.

While seemingly out of place in Pixar’s canon of films, WALL-E makes fitting in look easy. Andrew Stanton, Finding Nemo’s director, presents us with a robot of limited vocabulary and his only friend (and the only other being left on the desolate and dirty planet), a cockroach. The animators bring to the screen a dirty, deserted earth where the piles of rubbish and waste are taller than the city’s skyscrapers.

WALL-E’s messages are clear: care for our planet and environment and be wary of the not-always-nice big corporations.

This film’s lack of dialogue gives it a huge advantage - WALL-E’s actions speak louder and the barren, brown, permanently overcast earth paint a clearer picture than any words ever could. The combined power of these two elements shoves WALL-E’s message in the audience’s faces.

Staying with their left-field hits, Pixar have chosen an unlikely hero and character for their story. WALL-E is a robot whose sole purpose is to take man’s rubbish and squash it into more manageable small cubes. He does his job happily and quietly, yet still allowing himself to indulge in his curiosities of man’s trash. He is also a robot and strays from the norm of human-esque characters to portray emotion, but even with this seemingly difficult hurdle, Pixar adds another perfect character to their library. WALL-E clearly and genuinely lets us see and feel his emotions, from his nervous gesturing to his alarmed beeping, the viewer is never in doubt as to what WALL-E is feeling.

The arrival of EVE, a robot sent back to Earth by the humans in hope of finding evidence life can once again be sustained on the planet, further develops and demonstrates WALL-E’s ability to convey emotion. EVE’s arrival also heralds the introduction of the remaining humans who are stuck in space and have become so lazy and dependent on someone or something catering for their every move that they have become obese, lack emotion and looks as though they cannot walk or think for themselves.

Stanton has made it evident that this film is set in the not-too-distant future and another of the film’s messages takes shape: it’s time we took responsibility for our actions now, before it’s too late.

WALL-E keeps its momentum and audience enthralled right to the end of the film and the characters WALL-E, his companion the cockroach, and EVE leaving audiences in wonder of their ability to relate robots on an emotional level.

WALL-E has been Pixar’s most ambitious storytelling undertaking since Toy Story and is set to move the possibilities of animation further and further along the evolution trail.

Official site