Two boys' review: Wall-E is a fun romp for the under-7 crowd
I'm not writing this review from an adult's perspective. My two sons -- ages 6 and 4 -- really looked forward to Wall-E. This is their review.

We downloaded each new movie trailer on my computer and watched them multiple times. (If you haven't seen "Vacuum Vignette" you should go online and watch it.) The anticpation was greater than any other movie released in the summer of 2008.

Both of my sons gave this movie their "GG" rating -- Good! Good! They've never offered anything higher than "GGG" so I translated their rating into a four-star review here.

The first 25 minutes of this movie worried me because there's no dialogue, but Pixar had my kids captivated. In summary, this is a touching family comedy and love story that never forgets to entertain its main audience -- kids.


Good news: The DVD includes two animated shorts: "Presto Amazing" from the original theatrical release and the all-new "Burn-E."

I also recommend these Pixar films:

Toy Story (1995)
Toy Story 2 (1999)
Monsters, Inc. (2001)
Finding Nemo (2003)
The Incredibles (2004)
Cars (2006)
Ratatouille (2007)

PIXAR'S LATEST IS CUTE AND CLEVER, But with a Strong Message
Filmmaker Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) says Wall-e is not about the environment or obesity, but about relationships. Not to dispute the director, but isn't that what all romantic comedies, if not all films - if not all stories - are about? The romance between Wall-e and Eve is obviously the heart of the film. But the PLOT is about something else. So, even though the filmmakers were not consciously making a movie about the environment or obesity, Wall-e is about our present culture and how we are ruining ourselves and our planet by our obsession with instant gratification.

For those who aren't aware, Wall-e is a very likable little robot that is part of a mechanized effort to clean up earth, while its inhabitants take an extended 5-year cruise aboard a fleet of luxury space ships, headed by one called the Axiom. Unfortunately, the project breaks down so that only Wall-e is left to finish the work, and the 5-year cruise has turned into 700 years! (I don't think Skipper and Gilligan need ever be ashamed again over their cruise going awry!)

The Axiom sends a probe to earth to discover if there is any plant life remaining. When Wall-e meets the robot, Eve, whose directive (responsibility) is to acquire the specimen, love ensues. Eventually she does find one plant, which signals the probe to come back to pick her up. But Wall-e isn't about to let the love of his life disappear, so he stows away on the probe.

When the probe reaches the mother ship, we discover that, over the course of the past 700 years, humans have become lazy, bloated floating couch potatoes. There is a plan in place that, should plant life be discovered on earth, the captain of the ship is to return to earth with his passengers. But someone wants to sabotage that plan by getting rid of the evidence of the plant. Wall-e and his girlfriend-robot try to save the plant and thus the plan.

My favorite part of the film is the time spent in Wall-e's home. Like me, he's a collector, and his home if full of all the interesting objects he's found over the course of his career as a garbage robot: everything from extra parts in order to make repairs to himself, to a rubik's cube, a light bulb, a cigarette lighter and Christmas lights (all of which figure significantly in his relationship with Eve). His favorite find is an old VHS copy of Hello Dolly, which he cherishes religiously. He plays and hums one song in particular all day long while working with his best friend, an indestructible roach.

I believe most guys will fully appreciate Wall-e, because he really speaks to the little boy in all of us - but I think he speaks to most women as well. I mean, what little boy wouldn't love rummaging through a really interesting garbage dump finding all kinds of neat gadgets and treasures they can keep? Maybe there are many little girls that feel the same way; but I think what most girls, young and old, will like best about Wall-e is the little robot's thoughtfulness: he would make a good friend.

In spite of the wonderful romance and in spite of the character of the little robot Wall-e - or maybe because of them - I think what's most important about this film is the message it relays about what will happen to us culturally if we continue down this road of self-indulgent consumerism. The floating couch potatoes aboard the cruise ship spend their days in front of a screen, talking with their friends and sipping Buy-N-Large beverages. (Buy-N-Large is the mega company behind the rampant consumerism.) They don't even realize there are swimming pools and jogging tracks onboard the ship because they are so "plugged in" to their consumption and so out-of-touch with what is going on around them.

It's an important message. So, whether rampant consumerism, resulting in an environmental wasteland and an obese society, is the main plot or a subplot, it is an important takeaway, as is how we treat each other. The relationship between the two main robots is obviously the centerpiece of the film, and their expressions and gestures are not only priceless, they are genius, because they are so human. I would also add that another important message is the importance of seeing the value in everything and everyone, rather than being so quick to throw them away. Wall-e is definitely a role model for that, even to the point of being best friends with a roach! [Ugh!]

Waitsel Smith

An excellent, captivating story with some social commentary on the side
The movie will leave you feeling good. It's a heartwarming animated movie where the main characters are robots. The catch is PIXAR has done an extraordinary job of portraying emotion through these robots. While saying nothing, they effectively convey paragraphs, without the aid of human facial expression.

Everybody I know who has seen WALL-E has been taken in by the main characters and thoroughly enjoyed the entire movie.

The rest of my posting is a note of the social commentary and everybody's interpretation of it. In a nut shell - Many people leaving posts seem to interpret the take-away message of the movie as "Overweight people are typically lazy and uninterested and attached to tv screens." I think the message is actually the reverse: "lazy and uninterested people who are attached to tv screens typically end up overweight." Details Below.....

There is a running theme in the movie, that I interpret as : If we all continue to increase our "plugged-in" time, we will not end up in a very favorable state. By "plugged-in" time, I mean time spent surfing the internet, watching television, text-messaging, playing computer games, etc.

A prime example was when humans in the movie were next to each other, they still talked via video-conferencing using their personal screen/camera. Thus they never actually had to interact with anything but their personal screen/camera. I fear this may be an all-to-real commentary - I have seen a drastic increase in the amount of time people spend "plugged-in" over the last 10 years.

The next part of the commentary: the unfavorable state. The humans in the movie are all overweight. They move around in portable chairs, eat all their meals via milkshake, and appear to be quite unintelligent. I take this to be the direct result of too much time spent sitting in front of a screen. I acknowledge that not everybody who sits in front of a screen all day becomes fat, lazy or unintelligent, but nobody can argue that time spent in front of a screen (unless you are watching something educational/historical/fact-based) is going to improve health, energy levels or mental acuity.

It makes me sad to read the many posts where people cite WALL-E as a bad commentary with the message "fat people are lazy unintelligent blobs." I think it's a chicken and egg thing, and I do believe that people who are lazy and inactive tend to get overweight, while people who are intellectually uninterested in thinking and learning will normally not show very high mental abilities (since they do not exercise their minds!).

Some people have argued that children will take away the message that overweight people are lazy and stupid. I'm not really qualified to determine that. I would guess that it will depend on age and upbringing.

Fantastic
The people who thought this movie was boring must have the shortest attention spans ever. It was amazing how nicely each character was developed considering most of them only say a few words! Wall-E is a greatly lovable character who warmed my heart the entire movie. I highly recommend this for anyone! The message is great, the execution is lovely, and the whole thing is greatly entertaining.

Best Animated Movie of the Year - Oscar Winner
We loved Wall-E the first minute it started. I did not missed any of the messages and subplots that Disney and Pixar portrayed in this movie like pollution, overweight, decline of humans beings, our future, etc. This movie will make you think. Even though my kids loved the movie some messages might not be caught in full by small kids; so I took my time to explain to them how people got overweighed since they already figured out why the earth was polluted. We saw the movie again and now it is one of my kid's favorite's movies ever and ours too. Wall-E is an Oscar Winner to us; and we are desperately waiting to own it on DVD; and why not? maybe in toys for Christmas.