Wall-E (2012): Movie Review

‘

‘Put on your Sunday clothes, there’s lots of world out there” We’ve all heard the story about global warming, pollution, contamination, robots taking over, and how technology is making us lazier. We’ve seen statistics, been to seminars, watched videos that really freaked us all out. This science fiction – comedy – animation film shows us this same problem but in a more heart warming way, by showing us our future through the eyes of an adorable and curious little robot named Wall- E who is left all alone in the world. I had never seen this movie, I heard about it a lot and had many people say how cute it was: they weren’t wrong. I almost cried, I got sad, angry and happy all in a matter of minutes. Also made me rethink my life, because even though this is placed as a charming animation by Pixar,

it could still become a reality somehow. I think it will because every day we become lazier since the internet got more interesting than real life. It might have to do with the fact that on the internet you’re technically a free bird, you can see the world in a matter of clicks and for free, if you have a question just ask Google, and we even have the option of voice text (though not that effective). Not only this but we’ve also created technology to make our lives easier, live music files replacing our CDs and cassettes, Blue-ray and online movie sites replacing VHS, little robots that sweep the house for us, all to make our lives less of a hassle. So we became lazy and stopped really caring for the world, focusing more on ourselves and superficial things without realizing that in order to take good care of ourselves we must also take care of our world and the other species that live with us as well. That’s our reality even if we try to avoid it.

In this film the world we know no longer exists. There’s no people, no sunlight, no water, no plants, nothing. Just skyscrapers of garbage pilling up to the clouds. Then we see Wall-E piling up the trash alongside his pet roach , but other than just packing trash he also likes to collect little ”treasures” human have left behind (rubiks cubes, rubber ducks, lighters, etc) and takes them back to his little home inside a big truck. He also loves music and dancing as we can tell when he watches an old musical movie, he even records the tune to play it along the day. One day while doing his daily treasure hunt, he discovers a very small plant, the only one we can see throughout the story, and he takes it home with him. Then a spacecraft appears leaving a small EVE drone behind, Wall-E quickly falls for Eve but she barely even notices him. Eve scans around Earth looking for something and becomes frustrated when she can’t locate it. After she wrecks an old ship in a fit of rage, Wall-E approaches her and they introduce each other. They go back to Wall-E’s home so he can show her all his treasures, but when he shows her the plan she scans it which leads her to go into standby mode; Wall-E starts to panic but stays by her side while she’s in this state.

Suddenly the same spacecraft that left Eve on Earth comes back for her, Wall-E holds on to the ship to follow them. He travels along space, getting fully charged by the sun, seeing the stars and floating through the cosmos. They finally arrive to the mothership called the Axium (which appeared in a small video in the beginning of the film explaining how it was a five year vacation cruise for humans to get away from the trash filled Earth). While chasing down Eve through the ship, we can see the humans and how the cruise affected them: everyone is morbidly obese, they go along on floating chairs instead of walking, they don’t talk to each other face to face but rather through their screens, they eat their meals through cups, and have the robots do basically everything for them. Even the captain of the ship barely does anything, most of the ship’s commands are led under the autopilot steering wheel AUTO. When Eve is sent to the captain to be analyzed they suddenly notice that she doesn’t have the plant and they sent her along with Wall-E to the repair station because they think Eve is probably faulty, which makes her feel really bad. The repair station is sort of life a mental institution for very faulty robots (so I see why Eve felt bad by being sent there), when Wall-E feels that she is in danger he breaks into the repair room and accidentally frees all the malfunctioning robots onto the ship; making Eve and him appear as a dangerous threat. They manage to find the missing plant and once more try to retrieve it for the captain in order for the ship to return to Earth. Then we discover that AUTO has been hiding from the captain that the operation meant to help clean up Earth was cancelled and that they couldn’t return home. AUTO then locks the captain in his quarters after sending Wall-E and Eve down to the garbage disposal.

They manage to escape. With the help of the captain and the escaped robots they get through security to place the plant in it’s rightful base. The captain manages to turn off AUTO, even though Wall-E got severely crushed by the plant base before they returned to Earth. Once they arrive, Eve returns to Wall-E’s home to fix him. One Wall-E awake he does not remember Eve and has been rebooted. Eve kisses Wall-E goodbye and the electric shock the kiss made made his memory return. Then we see how the humans try to rebuild the Earth during the ending credits.

This was truly charming movie with a very powerful message behind this adventure-love story between the two main characters. The visuals were amazing, the colors, the photography, the simplicity of the characters in the sense that they said so little but at the same time so much in a movie with little dialogue. I could watch this a dozen times and I would still love it so much. I love how Wall-E was very curious and tries to understand all of those things that humans had left behind, also how he had emotions as well. I love the subtle presentation of themes regarding Environmental waste, technology and religion into the storyline.

The movie had high acclaims and was nominated for a long list of awards, winning several such as : Academy Award for Best Feature, Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Motion Picture, Outstanding Animation in an Animated Motion Picture, and Outstanding Effects Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture. Along with Toronto Film Critics Association award for  Best animated Film. Actually it won a lot of awards for best animated film and I think it deserved every single one. They should make more movies like these, animated and with a strong social message without being tacky, childish, overly-educational, a film that we actually want to see.

Hope you watch this movie if you haven’t already. Bye guys!

I rate this movie 5/5 plants.