WALL-E is one of the most interesting movies I've ever seen. That's not to say one of the best, although I do think it's quite good. Maybe it's in my Top 100. I'd have to actually make a Top 100 list to be sure. Perhaps I'll do that in 2009.
I'll ditto everything said about it in the previous review, the Stanley Kubrick and Charlie Chaplin nods, but one of my main concerns with WALL-E before I, and my four-year-old son, saw it was a concern brought up by a local film critic who has a movie review show here on the radio on Saturday afternoons. Max, the reviewer, also liked the film very much but he puzzled on who the intended audience was. Like the Pixar film before it, Cars (which by the way I am quite certain is in my Top 10), a portion of it was intended to appeal to the adult audience and only the adult audience. The middle of Cars, from the perspective of a child with a short attention span, is arguably quite slow-moving. There's quite a lot of dialogue and no action. I, and many other adults, loved the Route 66 homage and everything that contains. Now we come to WALL-E and it seems, at first glance, that the entire film is made for the adults, especially those who fondly remember 2001: A Space Odyssey, and to a lesser extent fans of Christopher Guest projects (who will enjoy Fred Willard's small live action role). Ironically, a reversal of Cars, it has very little dialogue, but at first glance it has the same problem: how is it appealing to kids?
Argue all you want about how that might not matter, that this little movie about a trash compactor should not be reviewed as a children's movie, but with it being made by Pixar and Disney, and animated, the need for it to appeal to children is inescapable. Many of us here on E2 are to some extent a geek of some sort and get off on any film that is remotely science fiction and/or futuristic and we are connoisseurs of animation, provided that these movies or television shows are - at least arguably - good. However, I will go out on a limb and say that we are in a minority and that, even though CGI is becoming quite photorealistic (and WALL-E is certainly no exception to that!), to most people over the age of 13, animated = cartoon, and a cartoon is a cartoon, and cartoons, while some can and do appeal to adults, should be for kids.
So, again, who is the intended audience here, I puzzled along with Max, before I rented the film? Buy and Large, kids don't know 2001. Or silent movies. Ever since I showed my 4-year-old son The Three Stooges he thinks every black and white movie now should have the Stooges. How could a film with little dialogue, not much action, about a love story between two robots, with deep underlying critiques of society and capitalism, possibly keep a child interested?
Well, much to my surprise, my son loved it. He wanted to watch it again and again. The geniuses at Pixar have done something magical with this movie and unfortunately I am at a loss to pinpoint what exactly it is. Somehow, this beautiful, slow, somber - and sometimes even depressing - CGI epic caught the rapt attention of a child with one of the worst attention spans that I know. Is WALL-E that cute? Is a little robot that compacts trash that interesting? Is it because some of it takes place in space?
If you've figured it out, please tell me, because I don't know for sure.
WALL-E
Release Date: June 27, 2008
Directed By: Andrew Stanton
Written By: Andrew Stanton, Peter Docter
Produced By: Lindsay Collins, John Lasseter, Gillian Libbert, Jim Morris, Thomas Porter, PIXAR
Running Time: 98 minutes
Distributed By: Walt Disney Pictures
Starring: Ben Burtt (voice of WALL-E), Elissa Knight (voice of EVE), Jeff Garlin (voice of the Captain), Fred Willard (Shelby Forthright - BnL CEO and President of the United States), MacInTalk (voice of Auto), John Ratzenberger (voice of John), Kathy Najimy (voice of Mary), and Sigourney Weaver (computer voice).
Rating: G.