Wall-E is a masterpiece, the character not the movie
holy crap, huh?
Darkness…darkness…Disney Presents a Pixar Production…darkness…BAM - music, stars, outerspace, singing:
Out there
Theres a world outside of Yonkers…
Way out there beyond this hick town, Barnaby
There’s a slick town, Barnaby…
More stars, celestial bodies, super novas, galaxies and Michael Crawford’s nasally, magnificently folksy voice sounding through the heavens…
Out there
Full of shine and full of sparkle
Close your eyes and see it glisten, Barnaby
Listen, Barnaby…
And then suddenly a dead, lonely, dirty, cluttered, dead dead Earth. The music fades into an eerie echo and we are plunged down deep into the apocalyptic mess…
bad ass
What a stunning opening. What ideas. What beauty. A little bit of a poem for yearning, for loneliness and aching - with a sweet, brilliant blend of optimism and curiosity and wonder and innocence and dorkiness. Yearning for what? For Who-Knows-What, that’s what. For sights and sounds and feelings and places and souls and moments that are Out There, Somewhere, waiting for us…
And then we meet Wall-E…
A robot (a combination of E.T., Johnny 5 and a rusty metal box) who embodies everything the opening sequence stirs in you. Wall-E is one of my favorite characters in film history. Of course, he’s just a dream, an ideal - a human being does not have the ability to be Wall-E. You might say that a kid does…but, really, that’s not true either. What kid is fully self-sustaining like Wall-E is? No, Wall-E is what we WANT to be, and that is why we react so emotionally to him.
they call this the "eye of God" - awesome
The first half of the movie lives completely with this extraordinary little robot on this desolate, scary version of Earth…with almost zero dialogue. Pixar paints itself willingly into a strangely confining corner - for ANY movie, let alone a FAMILY movie, a cartoon. But they take those limitations with a big smile and use them to their advantage. They somehow wring water (comedy and poignancy) from a rock (a bleak situation): towers of trash are skyscrapers or pyramids, exploding oil tankers make a romantic fire, a string of Christmas lights is worn to keep a new friend close but also to beautify, an old (REALLY old if you live in Wall-E’s time) musical comedy represents the meaning of his life, a collection of trash his soul…
The amazing thing about Pixar is that they are SERIOUS filmmakers. They are SERIOUS about making great movies, telling great stories with great characters, using a visual style unmatched by anyone ever. They make beautiful movies. So what - a lot of people make beautiful movies. The miraculous thing is how funny and warm and kid-friendly their movies are.
“Kid-friendly” - no, they go further than that. They demand attention from those kids, they demand thought and involvement. They don’t just throw a bunch of eye candy and gags and a one-note moral - Pixar challenges their young audience. They give kids, who are at their most impressionable age, real IDEAS they can chew on, take home, dream about.
I think it’s lovely that Wall-E is so strongly a movie about keeping Earth green and respecting ourselves as human beings. But I think that’s something that really only comes in at the second act and should remain only in the second act. The problem is - the movie ends with the second act. There is a third act missing. It’s great that the humans decide to finally take responsibility and start acting like humans again, taking back Earth and miraculously turning it green wicked quick. And it’s exciting and funny, but I think it has somehow forgotten where the movie began…and it’s kind of a contrived way to insert a crisis into the thing at the last minute.
I would love to have seen the humans return to Earth, sure - but I think there is so much more in store for the curious little robot Wall-E and his new companion Eve. There are new worlds, new creatures, new Who-Knows-What to be explored Out There, beyond this hick town, Barnaby - see it glisten, Barnaby!
We’ll see the shows at Delmonicos
And we’ll close the town in a whirl
And we won’t come home until we’ve kissed a girl!
