I recently saw Disney-Pixar's Wall-E with some local friends. I've always been a fan of Disney-Pixar. They usually know how to weave a heartwarming tale and keep the audience entertained throughout, something that more "serious" movie studios could learn from.
For those of you who don't know, Wall-E is the story of Wall-E, a trash-collecting robot left on Earth after a mass exodus of humanity. The Earth, so far as we are informed, was destroyed by human laziness and desire for convenience; a mega-corporation basically controlled the globe (or maybe just the US, as we never see any other area, but it is implied). As humanity became increasingly apathetic toward their environment, By and Large Incorporated realized all too late that the constant industrialization and pollution of the planet was making it inhospitable to life. In an effort to take everyone's mind off of it, they constructed a gigantic luxury liner space-station that would go on a 5-year-long cruise through space while BnL worker robots cleaned up the skyscrapers of garbage and processed the atmosphere.
Seven hundred years after the proposed solution, we open on Wall-E, who appears to be the last functioning garbage bot on the planet. Every day he ventures out into the abandoned city to compact garbage into cubes, and stacks those cubes into huge semblances of buildings. Despite his adherence to his routing programming, he's very quirky and collects baubles and knick-knacks, things he finds pretty, and stores them in his shed. He seems to have a very humble life, but is self-aware, and also very aware that he is alone on the world. This all changes when a probe is sent to Earth as part of the ongoing project to restore the planet. Wall-E bumps into an automated search-bot by the name of EVE, and from there the adventure begins. See, Wall-E has only had a single video of a 1950s love story, one of the musicals you might see in Drama Class in high school, to keep him company. Being innocent and impressionable, Wall-E uses the movie's ideas to attempt to impress EVE, who is at first only concerned with her Prime Directive, the recovery of a small plant Wall-E had found growing in an old boot.
The movie is a constant, visually-impressive ride through the course of robot and human discovery. There is a simultaneous plot going on between Wall-E's twitterpated attempts at winning EVE's digital heart. This story, the one revolving around the humans aboard the luxury-class starliner Axiom, is more intelligent, speaking out to the members of the audience who can understand environmental activism and personal accountability. The humorous antics of Wall-E and his robot friends are still very light-hearted and enjoyable, but the real meat of the plot is a combined message of taking responsibility for our own lives instead of living on conveniences while also taking accountability for your actions as they influence the world around you.
All in all, Wall-E will keep the kids entertained by the silly antics of the robots, whose only lines in the entire film (and indeed, the only lines in the entire first half hour of the movie) are simple terms like "Waaaalleeee," "Eeeeev-ah," and "Plllant!" However, the human side of things will probably be above their heads, intentionally aimed at teenagers and adults to tell a very serious story lightened by the heroics of our little trash-bot. The movie is intelligent but never keeps itself down in the dumps for too long, always driving the audience to the next point before we get too bored with the current scene.
I highly suggest Wall-E and give it a solid 8/10.
For those of you who don't know, Wall-E is the story of Wall-E, a trash-collecting robot left on Earth after a mass exodus of humanity. The Earth, so far as we are informed, was destroyed by human laziness and desire for convenience; a mega-corporation basically controlled the globe (or maybe just the US, as we never see any other area, but it is implied). As humanity became increasingly apathetic toward their environment, By and Large Incorporated realized all too late that the constant industrialization and pollution of the planet was making it inhospitable to life. In an effort to take everyone's mind off of it, they constructed a gigantic luxury liner space-station that would go on a 5-year-long cruise through space while BnL worker robots cleaned up the skyscrapers of garbage and processed the atmosphere.
Seven hundred years after the proposed solution, we open on Wall-E, who appears to be the last functioning garbage bot on the planet. Every day he ventures out into the abandoned city to compact garbage into cubes, and stacks those cubes into huge semblances of buildings. Despite his adherence to his routing programming, he's very quirky and collects baubles and knick-knacks, things he finds pretty, and stores them in his shed. He seems to have a very humble life, but is self-aware, and also very aware that he is alone on the world. This all changes when a probe is sent to Earth as part of the ongoing project to restore the planet. Wall-E bumps into an automated search-bot by the name of EVE, and from there the adventure begins. See, Wall-E has only had a single video of a 1950s love story, one of the musicals you might see in Drama Class in high school, to keep him company. Being innocent and impressionable, Wall-E uses the movie's ideas to attempt to impress EVE, who is at first only concerned with her Prime Directive, the recovery of a small plant Wall-E had found growing in an old boot.
The movie is a constant, visually-impressive ride through the course of robot and human discovery. There is a simultaneous plot going on between Wall-E's twitterpated attempts at winning EVE's digital heart. This story, the one revolving around the humans aboard the luxury-class starliner Axiom, is more intelligent, speaking out to the members of the audience who can understand environmental activism and personal accountability. The humorous antics of Wall-E and his robot friends are still very light-hearted and enjoyable, but the real meat of the plot is a combined message of taking responsibility for our own lives instead of living on conveniences while also taking accountability for your actions as they influence the world around you.
All in all, Wall-E will keep the kids entertained by the silly antics of the robots, whose only lines in the entire film (and indeed, the only lines in the entire first half hour of the movie) are simple terms like "Waaaalleeee," "Eeeeev-ah," and "Plllant!" However, the human side of things will probably be above their heads, intentionally aimed at teenagers and adults to tell a very serious story lightened by the heroics of our little trash-bot. The movie is intelligent but never keeps itself down in the dumps for too long, always driving the audience to the next point before we get too bored with the current scene.
I highly suggest Wall-E and give it a solid 8/10.
