Wall-E Review (MAJOR SPOILERS)
Jul. 17th, 2008 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matt_zimmerAnd when I say major I am not joking. I will literally be spoiling the ending. And this is not a movie you want to have spoiled going in (I was pretty much a blank slate) so if you PLAN on seeing the movie (even if it's at some point in the distant future) you'd be doing me and yourself a favor by not reading the following review.
Also a review for the new Pixar short Presto.
This is the easily the best film Pixar has ever done and that is not something I say lightly. I was literally in tears by the end of it, it was so beautiful. Every year Pixar comes out with a new picture and with the exception of the passable Cars they usually get THIS close to topping Finding Nemo but not quite. The Incredibles was a stunning visual acheivement with eye popping special effects and a suprising amount of heart. But you still had to get around the fact that the movie spouted more Objectivist bullcrap than Gorilla Grodd. Ratatouille is near perfect and I would probably consider it better than Finding Nemo if I liked the characters as much (not quite). Wall-E is on a level all it's own with characters that are lovable and in three cases heroic beyond anything we've seen that Pixar characters are capable of.
Let's get to the controversy first. Yes, the movie is pro-environmentalism but if you are REALLY the kind of parent who objects to seeing progressive ideals for the sake of your children and are steering your kids away from it because of that, you're probably either an idiot or a bad parent so it's your kids' loss. I actually think the movie's message is kind of ambiguous in a lot of ways because in the future it is revealed that humans have to do NO work and get to eat and relax all day. Yes, they are morbidly obese but they live in such a clean and beautiful paradise that it makes the fact that they DO want to better themselves a story of the triumph of the human spirit especially because they don't care if it's going to be hard. I'm not sure the human race in the present is that evolved yet so it made it that much more satisfying and humanistic despite a lot of the movie's darker themes.
The movie is esentially a love story between the robots Wall-E and Eve. Wall-E is a klutz who finds himself hopelessly in love with Eve who considers him an annoyance at best. He sacrifices everything for her and just when she REALLY starts to love him back he starts to take a MAJOR pounding. I swear, at the very end of the movie I had prepared myself for the possibility that Wall-E would be lost for good and in fact totally believed it at one point. Disney (not Pixar though) has a nasty habit of fake-out deaths that would probably have made the movies they had appeared in better if they had actually had the stones to go through with them. Instead they are cheap cop-outs. Normally I'd feel the same way about this one but I can't just because I would have been absolutely devastated and a Flowers for Algernon ending is WAY more brutal than any noble self-sacrifice death. When Eve was shaking Wall-E and pleading "Wall-E!" I'm pretty sure my heart literally ripped itself in half.
Wall-E and Eve are the most heroic characters Pixar has ever come up with. I like Eve because she's actually pretty dangerous so that makes Wall-E's infatuation with her doubly amusing.
But they aren't the only heroes of the movie. I want to give a special shout-out to Jeff Garlin as the Captain who if not quite the most noble character in the movie is the most noble member of the human race. He was the everyman as an overweight schlub (Garlin was a perfect casting choice just because Garlin is overweight in real life and he SOUNDS overweight) who has a curiousity and determination in him that makes him a true hero. I'll take him over Buzz and Woody anyday.
The movie is pretty bleak and disturbing in the beginning and even MORE so when we see what the human race has evolved into which makes the totally optimistic ending that much more rewarding.
I really can say nothing more about the movie other than it was the best movie I've seen in a few years, at least since Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and to be honest this is even better. Go see it. *****.
Presto: Pixar shorts are usually expiremental so it was a delight just watching a short that was pure comedy with no higher aspirations. Think Knick Knick with jaw-dropping animation. I especially liked the super-happy ending the short went for and the reconciliation between the rabbit and the magician when they both realize they had unintentially delivered their greatest show ever. *****.
Also a review for the new Pixar short Presto.
This is the easily the best film Pixar has ever done and that is not something I say lightly. I was literally in tears by the end of it, it was so beautiful. Every year Pixar comes out with a new picture and with the exception of the passable Cars they usually get THIS close to topping Finding Nemo but not quite. The Incredibles was a stunning visual acheivement with eye popping special effects and a suprising amount of heart. But you still had to get around the fact that the movie spouted more Objectivist bullcrap than Gorilla Grodd. Ratatouille is near perfect and I would probably consider it better than Finding Nemo if I liked the characters as much (not quite). Wall-E is on a level all it's own with characters that are lovable and in three cases heroic beyond anything we've seen that Pixar characters are capable of.
Let's get to the controversy first. Yes, the movie is pro-environmentalism but if you are REALLY the kind of parent who objects to seeing progressive ideals for the sake of your children and are steering your kids away from it because of that, you're probably either an idiot or a bad parent so it's your kids' loss. I actually think the movie's message is kind of ambiguous in a lot of ways because in the future it is revealed that humans have to do NO work and get to eat and relax all day. Yes, they are morbidly obese but they live in such a clean and beautiful paradise that it makes the fact that they DO want to better themselves a story of the triumph of the human spirit especially because they don't care if it's going to be hard. I'm not sure the human race in the present is that evolved yet so it made it that much more satisfying and humanistic despite a lot of the movie's darker themes.
The movie is esentially a love story between the robots Wall-E and Eve. Wall-E is a klutz who finds himself hopelessly in love with Eve who considers him an annoyance at best. He sacrifices everything for her and just when she REALLY starts to love him back he starts to take a MAJOR pounding. I swear, at the very end of the movie I had prepared myself for the possibility that Wall-E would be lost for good and in fact totally believed it at one point. Disney (not Pixar though) has a nasty habit of fake-out deaths that would probably have made the movies they had appeared in better if they had actually had the stones to go through with them. Instead they are cheap cop-outs. Normally I'd feel the same way about this one but I can't just because I would have been absolutely devastated and a Flowers for Algernon ending is WAY more brutal than any noble self-sacrifice death. When Eve was shaking Wall-E and pleading "Wall-E!" I'm pretty sure my heart literally ripped itself in half.
Wall-E and Eve are the most heroic characters Pixar has ever come up with. I like Eve because she's actually pretty dangerous so that makes Wall-E's infatuation with her doubly amusing.
But they aren't the only heroes of the movie. I want to give a special shout-out to Jeff Garlin as the Captain who if not quite the most noble character in the movie is the most noble member of the human race. He was the everyman as an overweight schlub (Garlin was a perfect casting choice just because Garlin is overweight in real life and he SOUNDS overweight) who has a curiousity and determination in him that makes him a true hero. I'll take him over Buzz and Woody anyday.
The movie is pretty bleak and disturbing in the beginning and even MORE so when we see what the human race has evolved into which makes the totally optimistic ending that much more rewarding.
I really can say nothing more about the movie other than it was the best movie I've seen in a few years, at least since Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and to be honest this is even better. Go see it. *****.
Presto: Pixar shorts are usually expiremental so it was a delight just watching a short that was pure comedy with no higher aspirations. Think Knick Knick with jaw-dropping animation. I especially liked the super-happy ending the short went for and the reconciliation between the rabbit and the magician when they both realize they had unintentially delivered their greatest show ever. *****.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-17 11:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-28 03:03 am (UTC)They did an amazing job of depicting robots with emotions despite the fact that they had little vocabularies and weren't really human looking. I was afraid Wall-E was going to be wiped and it'd be like a B4 situation like at the end of Star Trek: Nemesis. But it had a happy and hopeful ending, which made me smile.
The short was hilarious.
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Date: 2008-07-28 12:27 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-08-06 08:25 pm (UTC)Sorry, I'm a Hunchback geek. It is my favorite Disney movie and I get really defensive about it since it's never grouped in with the modern "Classics" like Mermaid, Beast, Aladdin or Lion. It most assuredley had a happy ending as it drove purist fans of Victor Hugo's novel bonkers. A better example of a sad Disney ending is Pochahontas. It's too bad the rest of that movie sucked.
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Date: 2008-08-11 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-08-14 05:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-14 11:28 am (UTC)