I finally gave in and saw Wall-E, the latest bulls-eye on the
cultural zeitgeist to hit theaters from Pixar, the creators of some of my
favorite animated films, like Finding Nemo, and
The Incredibles. The reason I originally avoided
Wall-E like the plague was because it looked like an adorable little movie about
the struggles of a cute little robot that fights insurmountable odds. In other
words, it appeared to be a great film for little children, but not for cynical,
jaded little old me. I also avoided Wall-E because of Cars. I hated Cars with a
passion--so much so that I couldn’t even finish watching the damn thing (which
was why I never wrote a review of it). Well, I decided to give the boys at Pixar
another chance, and finally gave in and saw Wall-E...and you know what?
Yep, it blows.
Wall-E is a film about a cute, adorable little rascal of a robot who’s been left
behind on an abandoned earth by the human race. Earth has become polluted to the
point where it can no longer sustain life, and so the humans take to outer space
in a massive starship named the Axiom. Wall-E is the last of a series of clean
up robots who’s still tediously cleaning up a deserted city. The only company he
has is a pet cockroach. For one thing, I really, really hate cockroaches--I’m
not a big bug fan in general--and I’m getting tired of all these movies (like
Twilight Of The Cockroaches) that try to either "humanize" them, or make them
cute little suckers. Cockroaches may well inherit the earth once the
psycho-crazed human race finally kills itself, but until then, to hell with the
little bastards, ok?
Ok, rant over. About fifteen minutes into the film, I realized that the makers
of Wall-E must be huge Woody Allen fans, because that was who Wall-E reminds me
of: a somewhat nebbish, down-trodden schmo who falls for a class act woman who’s
unattainable. In this case, that’s Eve, a robotic probe sent from the Axiom to
see if earth can sustain life. There’s even a montage of Wall-E "dating" Eve
throughout the ruins of the city, all while set to old show tunes, which
reminded me of the best of Allen’s films. The problem is, halfway through Wall-E,
I wanted to see a Woody Allen film--and whenever you find yourself
thinking about another movie (or anything else at all) while watching a film,
that’s a bad sign right there.
And it’s ironic that the main theme of Wall-E is anti-consumerism, with its
depiction of the people aboard the Axiom as being lazy, overweight slugs who
only move around in hovering easy chairs. It’s ironic because Wall-E is produced
by Pixar, and released by Walt Disney, which are both pillars of the consumerism
consortium who stamp out countless useless merchandizing for their films in a
bid to get consumers--the very people whom Wall-E is making fun of--into buying
more, more, MORE! Oh well, looks like I didn’t like Wall-E, either. I was never
a big fan of cute little science fiction robots, anyway.
--SF
Main Review Page | Animated Film Reviews |Wall-E (Widescreen Single-Disc Edition)
