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Film: WALL-E

WALL-E was pretty firmly on my “wait until DVD” list until I saw the reactions to reviews by Dirty Harry and Kyle Smith. The MSM and elsewhere declared WALL-E the best thing since anything, while Harry and Kyle were less than impressed. Moonbats swept in. It seemed that anyone with a conservative bent who spoke ill of the little robot that could was in for a pounding. I needed to see what all the hub-bub was about.

In WALL-E, humans have trashed the planet. In response, the vast corporation that runs the entire planet (hey, capitalism wins it all!) evacuates everyone from Earth, leaving behind an army of Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth-class robots (WALL-E) to clean up. It’s supposed to be a five-year mission. Things go awry and our story begins 700 years after the planetary evacuation, with one robot still at work. His lonely world is disrupted by the arrival of EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), sent to Earth in search of life.

In terms of computer cinematic technology, WALL-E is brilliant, but this is, after all, a Pixar film. They get better with each film, so while it’s brilliant it’s more evolutionary than revolutionary. I know that sounds like damning with faint praise, but for me there is no moment in WALL-E equal to what Pixar has done in films like Finding Nemo or Ratatouille.

Except with WALL-E himself. Incredible attention to a host of details brings that square chunky guy to life. With barely a word, the relationship that stirs between WALL-E and EVE is touching and engaging. The creative geniuses at work here deserve applause and praise. Too bad they couldn’t hang in there for the whole film.

[Warning, spoilers ahead!]

Because once the film soars into space and goes aboard the fat ship Axiom, it all starts going to hell. In short, I loved the robots and their story, loathed the humans and their story. The humans are, for no good reason, repellant at all sorts of levels and in all sorts of ways. They are morbidly obese and wrapped in a consumerism-obsessed world. All humanity seems to have been leached from them and fed to the machines. And even there, while I generally loved the robots, the more they added, the more clichéd they became.

(Notable exception: M-O, Microbe-Obliterator. I loved that little scrubbing robot. One of my favorite moments in the film is when M-O is faced with either following his path or doing his job. The determination he exhibits when he jumps the path to pursue the dirt is awesome. That he’s casually a hero is a bonus.)

Because I loved WALL-E, I kept wondering: What happened to all the other WALL-E units? How did our WALL-E become the sole survivor? How did he become sentient? How did he develop emotion? Is he becoming lonely, is he slipping toward despair? I can’t stress enough how much I wanted to see that story.

Alas, it was not meant to be, which meant I had to try and overcome massive plot-holes and inconsistencies: Why are the Earth-class WALL’s dinky while those aboard the Axiom-class are huge (and freakin’ awesome)? The Axiom doesn’t recycle, it just compacts and tosses its garbage into space, so where do its resources, which have lasted 700 years, come from? What happened to the fleet? If all the plants are dead, where’s the oxygen coming from? If the atmosphere was toxic, what cleaned it? How does a plant survive in a dark, locked box? Why is there only one cockroach?

On and on.

The anti-consumer/anti-capitalism aspects of the story were consistently intrusive. The rule is if it doesn’t add to the plot, it’s comment. Here, they substituted comment for plot. That they did so in a $180 million film, wrapped with consumer/capitalist tie-ins, drips with irony.

Other than for purposes of commentary: There was no need to have a massive corporation (Wal-Mart?) running the planet; humans didn’t have to evolve into variations of the Pillsbury dough boy; and humans didn’t have to shun all real contact with each other, focusing instead on the video image in front of them.

None of these added to the plot. Instead, they blasted me out of the film again and again.

Andrew Stanton, the film’s writer/director, says he never intended any ecological message in WALL-E. His concept was of a story about the last robot left on earth. The destruction of the Earth’s biosphere is the impetus to get humanity off-world, ultimately leaving WALL-E alone. I believe him because the ecological disaster is integral to the plot, both its setup and resolution.

As filmed, though, why do humans want to return to Earth? By all indications, they can continue as a space-faring race forever. The ships left on a five-year mission, but they’re doing fine after 700 years. Given their morbid obesity, remaining in space is actually better for humanity.

Take away the consumer/capitalism commentary and the story cleans right up. AUTO -- the HAL-like computer running the ship -- had a valid argument for not returning to Earth, that there was little proof that the Earth could once again sustain life. His resistance is a natural outgrowth of his programming, to protect humanity.

Recycling on a spaceship is a natural thing to do, so you could have had humans learning to recycle the hard way, by necessity. Since a spaceship is a closed eco-system, the humans would have to deal with dwindling resources. The result of that would be that as long as it remains in space, humanity is doomed.

Those two points in opposition mean conflict and that equals drama, the sort that drives a story along.

Told this way, the plant WALL-E gives EVE is mankind’s salvation. The story arcs of the robots and the humans now dove-tail. A trifle trite, maybe, but these are just thoughts off the top of my head. Besides, it’s all in the presentation. Just ask WALL-E.

WALL-E demonstrated care and skill with its titular character, but the sloppy and snarky nature of the rest ruins the film for me.

Comments

Toto said…
Good, fair review. I'm still aghast at how many all-out raves this movie generated. The flaws you picked apart are out there for all to see ... and that doesn't mean the film isn't winning in spots. You can turn the sound off of any Pixar movie and revel in the imagery.

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