WALL-E (2008) Review

WALL-E (2008) 9/10

Hello everyone and welcome back to another movie review. Today, I’m going to go over not only my first Pixar movie, but one of my favorite movies of all time. WALL-E premiered at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles on June 23, 2008 with the director being Andrew Stanton, who did Finding Nemo. John Lasseter of Toy Story fame executive produced the movie. The movie was a massive hit and is regarded as a classic of the late-2000’s, with the movie even entering the National Film Registry.

As I said earlier, WALL-E is one of my favorite movies of all time, and rewatching it now only solidified my feelings on this. As much as I would love to give this a perfect score, I can’t. I just don’t think the movie is strong enough for a rating like that. But don’t let that detract you from the fact that this movie is an awesome time, and an excellent warning about over-corporatization, taking care of the planet, and simple love between robots.

The year is 2805. Far into the future, mankind ruined planet Earth with its industrial greed and negligence of the Earth. Because of Earth’s inhabitable state, the mega corporation Buy n Large (BnL) launched a ship called The Axiom into space, holding all of humanity on it. While humanity is away, living in luxury and blissful ignorance of their situation, a bunch of robots called WALL-Es will be cleaning up the planet. As time passes on, only one WALL-E robot left, which is our protagonist. WALL-E has developed a curious personality, picking up anything that he finds interesting and keeping it for himself. He has his own bunker and is quite content with his life as he works to clean up the planet, one cube at a time. One day, a ship lands on Earth and out comes a robot probe. This probe is named EVE and she seems to be looking for any signs of plant life to bring back with her. Her and WALL-E meet and he shows her a tiny plant that he found. Due to her prime directive, she is to bring the plant back to the Axiom and report that the planet is habitable again. WALL-E will journey along with her into the deepest reaches of space back to the Axiom. This is the story about one robot who, infatuated, saves the planet all to find companionship with another robot.

Can I just take a moment to appreciate the movie’s screenplay? I don’t normally comment on this as I just include it in the overall writing, but this movie had a spectacular screenplay. The movie has minimal dialogue as most of the storytelling is told through both WALL-E and EVE’s actions as well as the environment. We do have a scene of exposition for the captain, but everything just lined up so well. The movie hooks you in with its incredible writing, all told through beeps, whirs, and the occasional robotic voice. WALL-E himself is an excellent protagonist. I love how he has a curious personality, making him perfect to set up certain situations and plot points. And at the end of the day, he just wants companionship, just like the rest of us. EVE, the Captain, Auto, and even the two random humans WALL-E interacts with are all great characters too.

Quick shout out to the Captain. All his life, he’s just been doing his duty, serving the Axiom and its people. But as soon as he gets a whiff of Earth and the outside life, he’s fully engrossed in learning more. He’s asking the computer to define basic definitions and I love his curiosity too. Truly goes to show that even if you just open your eyes to the greater things around you, there’s so much more to take in instead of what’s being shoved into your face. The same thing can be said about those two randos that WALL-E meets, opening their eyes to their surroundings and eventually finding each other.

I absolutely love the film’s art direction and animation. Although it oozes with the classic Pixar art style, because this is more focused on robots and the environment, the movie took a slightly different approach to its direction. The end result is honestly one of the most unique looking movies ever made. I love the design for WALL-E, EVE, and all of the other robots. I love how unhealthy all humans look, due to the lack of diet and exercise. Really helps sell the dangers of The Axiom. Earth looks terrible with all the debris and dust, and space is just breathtaking. They really knocked it out of the park with this.

The music is really good too. Of course we got the famous “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” song, which is taken from the movie “Hello Dolly”. The rest of the soundtrack is awesome too. I honestly have more memories of this soundtrack from the PS2 game than the movie itself lol, but that just goes to show how good it is. Sound design and voice acting are all really good too. All the bleeps and boops as well as toddler-like noises from WALL-E and the robots are all amazing. Special shout out to Jeff Garlin, who voices the Captain. The way he delivered the line “I don’t want to survive. I want to live!” hit so fucking hard. Fucking perfect. Also shout out to Ben Burt (WALL-E), Elissa Knight (EVE), and the MacInTalk computer program (Auto).

WALL-E is a certified classic that I can turn on at any time and enjoy it to its fullest extent. As I said earlier, this is one of my favorite movies ever and one of Pixar’s best. If you haven’t seen WALL-E yet, you are doing yourself a disservice. You gotta check this out. Until my next review, stay frosty.

Thanks for reading.

This is Zorgak, signing off.