WALL E Andrew Stanton

Starring: Fred Willard, Jeff Garlin, Ben Burtt, Sigourney Weaver, John Ratzenberger
Director: Andrew Stanton: (Finding Nemo)
Producer: Jim Morris
Screenwriter: Andrew Stanton
Producer: Jim Morris
Composer: Thomas Newman

WALL-E
a computer-animated cosmic comedy about a determined robot named WALL•E
(short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) and his co-robot EVE

PLOT: After hundreds of lonely years of doing what he was built for, collecting knick-knacks, WALL•E discovers EVE a sleek search robot who sets him on a new life’s mission. He chases Eve across the galaxy and sets into motion an exciting and imaginative comedy that speaks mountains to the human experience we now enjoy on this fragile site called earth. The robots’ mission is to return the over stuffed, over indulged video addicted humans home to a sustainable earth where the accumulation of garbage no longer hinders their ability to physically fit on earth.

Commentary:
I never liked cartoons as a child. I was not one of those addicted to Saturday morning programs with made up , animated, figures racing across a television screen for no apparent reason other than to destroy one another and then bounce back as if death was only a game and life the real deal. When my three year old son had to explain the “plot” of the cartoon and the reason for his enjoyment of what he saw. I realized that his world and mine were very much at odds.

But Walt Disney has helped to bridge that gap. The Lion King, which I did not see, is strongly recommended by sane adults who never enjoyed the Road Runner or the Bugs Bunny of her/his day.
But with all the high praise and the enjoyment I reaped from the film “Year of the Fish”(reviewed for criticalwomen@blogspot.com), I decided to spend the money, take the plunge and sit through this elongated cartoon, WALL-E.

In the film WALL E, the robots unite. but don’t multiply, not yet. WALL E is a robot who devotes his time to gathering trash and yes, there is so much of it, after the earth has been abandoned and its denizens live in outer space.

We all recognize the trashed items and it is this along with the angular motions of the heads and robotic body twists and turns that helps the viewer identify with these decidedly inanimate objects. And their daily activities help us know that these creataures are replicas of us.

WALL E is designed to collect, assemble and move useless things that we once held claim to from one place to another.

I particularly liked the scene with an umbrella that seemed to have a life of its own, as they always do, turning inside out and becoming albeit momentarily the ally of nature’s seeming intent to force us earlthy creatures to get wet rather than stay dry.

The scenes with the “people" in outer space, the shape of their bodies, the snapping of fingers to be fed(they ingest only liquids because solid food takes too much effort to consume), protected, catered to in all its unhealthy humanlike ways resonates with anyone who has known the “shut in man" of today who never leaves his house because everything he needs to live and be entertained is found at the snap of a finger or a call to the local delivery eatery; or on the internet, the television or cell phone or hand held video game.

This film is so true to life, so funny in its exaggerations, so real to the mind, that one forgets that it is just a cartoon, written by the geniuses in the field and animated by the state of the art artists of which, judging from the long lists of credits, there are hundreds, maybe thousands.

With so many professionally gifted people involved in this extraordinary effort to entertain the viewer, you can’t go wrong in participating in the experience of Wall-E, a state of the art, masterpiece.


Linda Z
WBAI Women’s Collective
rotten tomatoes vine:Witches Brew

Theatrical Release: Jun 27, 2008 World Wide

Currently playing at the New York City Angelika Theater on Houston street.