Jason's WALL-E Review!

First, let me just say that I am really excited to be back. I have been anxious to get back to writing and loving on movies, and I think talking about WALL-E is the perfect way to come back in style.

I have been looking forward to WALL-E for a long time. But then again, any project Pixar releases has me waiting anxiously ahead of time. Pixar is the epitome of computer animated movies and any other movie of the same format is automatically compared to Pixar’s unreachable standard. I watched Kung Fu Panda earlier this summer, and I can tell DreamWorks is trying real hard to make a quality movies. But after watching WALL-E, no other computer animated movie could possibly match up. The Bottom Line: WALL-E is simply the best computer animated movie ever made and it ranks up there with the most elite animated movies of all time (Not to mention it is one of the best films of the last decade).


Roughly, the first 40 minutes of WALL-E contains absolutely no dialogue. Other than some corporate infomercials convincing humans to leave earth, some singing and dancing clips from Hello Dolly, and some of those cute WALL-E sounds, the film is vocally absent. The stories are mainly told through physical means. Such as WALL-E performing his everyday routine, newspaper headlines that WALL-E conveniently runs over, and infomercials that play when sensors are tripped. But just about everything you need to know is taken in through your eyes. If the movie were completely without sound, it would still be enjoyable and understandable. But when Pixar does everything else right, it is nice to have the sound too.

Pixar has always amazed me with their attention to detail. I mean, nothing is taken for granted here, and the background set pieces are as much characters as WALL-E and Eve are. The way the dust blows, how the wind affects the trash piles, the wavy lines of heat, the trail marks left in the dust, and movement in space is all done to perfection. Not to mention about a million sight gags and cleverly integrated everyday things that appear throughout the movie in the background. And the ship is a dazzling display of light and satirical comedy. This is by far the most detailed computer animated universe ever made.

Just as every set piece has a personality, so do all the robots. What makes the emotion of WALL-E and Eve so amazing is that each emotion is conveyed through the normal working parts of their robot body. There are no goofy faces or fake expressions added. For example, WALL-E’s eyes are really lenses that zoom in and out, or “dilate.” When he is curious or scared or nervous, it is all seen in his eyes. However, nobody shows more emotion (other than WALL-E, of course!) than my favorite robot M-O (pronounced “moe”). M-O is an OCD cleaning robot aboard the spaceship housing all the humans, and he is so much fun to watch. M-O’s personality is his OCD. He cannot stand for anything to have a “foreign contaminate” and he will not stop until everything is clean. M-O’s encounters with WALL-E are really charming, and show fully the personality of each of them. Every robot is individualistic and free thinking.


On the flip side, the entire human race is obese and self-absorbed. They all wear the same outfit, do the same things, and stay wrapped up in their own worlds. They do not think for themselves, and are incapable of physical activity. This movie is Pixar’s most obvious social commentary. Humanity has become so wasteful and luxurious, we are almost not able to defend ourselves with it becomes necessary.

One of my favorite scenes was WALL-E and Eve Dancing. Earlier in the movie when Eve was sent to Earth to find signs of life, you could tell she had been there before. She waited for the main ship to leave and she spread her wings and began to fly alone. Later on, away from earth, the captain of the Axiom spaceship begins to look up things about Earth. One of the things he looks up is “dancing.” As dancing is defined, WALL-E and Eve are flying in space with each other to music, and Eve has finally found someone to share flying with.

There are about a million things I could discuss but nobody would keep reading for that long. There is really too much to look at and take in during just a couple viewings. I didn't even talk about the scariness of "Auto", the ships HAL lookalike co-pilot who will do anything to follow the orders he has been given, the many other references to 2001: A Space Odyssey and Short-Circuit, or the "obvious" Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin comparisons. I figure I'll let the rest of the critic crowd beat those subjects to death.


I did, however, find a few of the EASTER EGGS Pixar likes to hide in all of their movies, and up until now I have been avoiding reviews so I could find them on my own. Here are the ones I was able to find:

#1 - Towards the beginning of the movie, WALL-E goes to sleep on a shelf in his cargo truck home. WALL-E sleeps in box form, and as he is just beginning to wake up to recharge, right behind him above his top right corner is a little figure of Mike from Monsters Inc. on a stick.

#2 - During the scenes where Eve is looking for signs of life, she looks under the hood of a car. When she slams the hood shut, you can see a little rocket ship on top of the yellow car she just looked in. The car is really the Pizza Planet truck from Toy Story.

#3 - This one I am not entirely sure about but, towards the end when WALL-E and Eve are stuck in the big compacted boxes of trash, just below Eve on the left appears to be Buzz Lightyear’s plastic dome head sticking out of the trash.

*Update* Here is a link to a /Film article outlining the rest of the Easter Eggs found so far. Jake in the comments is the only other person to mention Mike from Monsters Inc., and no one has seen the Buzz Lightyear I thought I saw. Enjoy.




I know this review is choppy, but I talked about some of the things I thought were important in order to show the sheer love Pixar incorporates into each of their movies. This movie is successful in everything it sets out to accomplish. It would be really great to see other animated movies, as well as Sci-fi movies, be able to succeed where WALL-E does.

10/10

P.S. Its funny how DreamWorks uses extensive marketing to promote the big name celebrity voice talents that work on their movies, and yet, Pixar, who has never relied on big name voice marketing, can make a movie, in which the first 40 minutes contain no dialogue, 100% better than any other animated movie outside Pixar Studios.