1. Stunning Visuals
Modern movie audiences are becoming much harder to impress with the use of special-effects. Moviegoers have already seen just about every fantasy world and every creature imaginable. WALL-E does not introduce to us any computer-generated sights that we have not seen before: the characters (humans and robots) are familiar, as are the locations (earth and space). Still, it manages to present itself in such a way that offers many breathtaking visual moments throughout the movie. The animation of the characters and the locations are both equally impressive; just as much detail can be appreciated within the character design as in the intricate landscapes. If I had to select just one image that stands out above the rest, it would probably be the desolate, trash-filled urban ruins of the film’s opening act, an image that will occupy your mind well after you leave the theater. Even though choices in the visual style are meant to highlight the contrast between different elements (WALL-E with EVE, the polluted earth with the spotless space-station, the tiny characters with the vast galaxy), the unique vision somehow manages to remain almost completely consistent from start to finish.
2. Excellent use of sound
Personally, I tend to gravitate more towards movies that depend very heavily on dialogue for their success. I prefer scripts that are packed with memorable and meaningful quotes. WALL-E, by contrast, contains almost no conversations. The main robot characters do not have the ability to communicate verbally beyond making just a few sounds. There are human characters and other robots/computers in the film who do speak, but even still, the dialogue probably only amounts to a few pages. This comment does not reflect a lack of thought-provoking content, but merely reflects the skill with which sight and sound tells the story. In the midst of this world of silence, though, there are still plenty of aural pleasures. Much like the visuals, the movie’s sound effects serve to emphasize the contrast between different parts of its world. The film also does not choose to overpower the ears with a predictable Hollywood instrumental score, but offers more natural, understated music throughout the movie.
3. An extraordinarily thoughtful science-fiction story
The fictional universe of WALL-E exists in a distant future that exaggerates many features that are undeniably present in our lives today. The earth has been exploited and polluted to the degree that life is no longer sustainable. Technology has advanced to the point where physical effort and interpersonal interactions have been minimized. Consumerism and conformity have run rampant and has come to define almost every aspect of daily life. Unlike many other science-fiction stories, there is no greedy, evil corporation that conspired to create these results, but the situation progressed slowly over time from collective actions. The film’s universe is not entirely devoid of optimism, though, as WALL-E himself sheds light onto the darkness. The unique little robot actually offers us a reminder of those traits that define us as human. He is affectionate and sensitive, he enjoys things that are playful and frivolous, and he seeks others as a mirror to understand himself. In many ways, he is the most human character in the story, and so he becomes a fitting catalyst to change the course of mankind. The film achieves the highest aim of all science-fiction: to offer a meaningful portrait of our world, by showing us a world different from ours.
4. A genuinely moving, emotionally-driven story
I have little doubt that WALL-E the (Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-class) and EVE (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) will become two of the most iconic movie characters of this decade. WALL-E is essentially an obsolete robot model, prone to mistakes, but endlessly compassionate. EVE is the sleek, advanced type, ruthlessly efficient in her functions, but with just as much personality. The journey shared by these two stars of the film becomes the main focus as the movie progresses. Their story invokes authentic emotions both of heartwarming joy and intense sadness. They depend upon each other, but they also love each other in an even deeper way. In a sense, the love story simplifies some human emotions, but only in order to explore the core truths inside them. WALL-E also interacts with other minor characters throughout the film which make for a few additional side-plots along the way: a cockroach that befriends him, the men and women on the space station, a band of defective robots, a robot single-handedly obsessed with cleaning WALL-E’s mess, the space captain who struggles against his mutinous autopilot computer. These additions not only advance the main plot, but they also provoke thought and feeling as they add further layers of meaning onto the overall narrative.
5. Brilliant thematic depth that links together its thought and emotion beautifully
It might seem to be a contradiction to include an intimate love story alongside a sweeping epic about the fate of mankind. Essentially, though, if I were to summarize the story’s subject matter as one thing, I would say that it’s a film about relationships: between one being and another, between the individual and the collective, between past and future generations, and the massive triangle between nature and mankind and technology. These different symbiotic relationships all interrelate to each other beautifully. The interactions between WALL-E and EVE also serve to comment upon these other, much larger forces around them. For instance, the loneliness that WALL-E experiences at the beginning of the film and the happiness that WALL-E shares with EVE parallel those same emotional opposites in the broader relationships. A recurring image of two hands joining together is not merely a device, but an expression of the themes common in all of the strands of the story. Just as the different parties achieve much more together than they ever could separately, WALL-E offers a classic example of a whole work that links itself together to become even greater than the sum of its parts.
See it, enjoy it, and share it with others. There are not many films like it, but there should be.
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