'WALL•E' Film Review
Pixar has done it again. A small, rusty garbage compaction unit will bring a smile to your face and a tear to your eye.
Buy 'N Large.
Biography has sat in at an advance screening and Q&A of Pixar's new sure-fire hit, WALL•E (pronounced Wally), and even though no-one else in the office had even heard of it yet, stickers are being handed out and much fanfare is being made.
Not so long ago, Italy's Naples made headlines around the world as the city found itself literally disappearing under an extraodinarily mismanaged mountain of trash. Pixar has simply imagined this on a global scale - but never fear, space is no longer the final frontier, and handily the Buy 'N Large company will not only ship mankind out into the big black, but will clean the planet up as well while we're cruising around having a jolly.
Or so they say. In reality, just one little Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class (our eponymous hero, WALL•E ) is left on Earth, and mankind is being subjected to endless enforced pleasure and leisure on the cruise ships. If this is heaven, trust us, it ain't pretty.
Structurally speaking, WALL•E has a classic voyage and return plot, ably aided and abetted by a good old fashioned quest; the conquering of the monster (Hal, anyone?); a strong underlying theme about rebirth; and of course it's all bound together by the moving love story between a star-struck garbage compactor and an aloof, surprisingly violent Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator. They were obviously trying very hard to call her EVE. Ok, so it's not always subtle, but the film delivers such a beautifully intergrated combination of comedy and pathos that one becomes very receptive to the moral message (look after the planet, people) driving the story forward.
The Q&A was with the lovely Directing Animator Angus MacLane, who discussed the difficulty Pixar had in pitching the idea of a film about an almost speechless trash machine and his companion cockroach, set largely on a wasteland earth, to the financiers. Have we mentioned that the first 45 minutes of WALL-E are almost dialogue free? If not don't worry, you'll be hearing all about it soon. Joss Whedon's landmark Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode 'Hush' drew massive accolade for it's 45 minutes of silence, and Pixar have repeated this feat, and then some.
But Angus explained that rather than being a problem, imposing limitations - such as having to work with non-verbal characters - actually becomes a wide open door to creativity. Indeed, his animators have delivered phenomenal performances from the film's stars. The characters, that is - you probably won't have heard of most of the voice actors, but then agan, it's arguable that the studio itself is all the drawcard its films need. Pixar is developing an A-list reputation all of its own.
And how much expression can a small rattly box have, I hear you ask? You have no idea. As with people, the character really comes out in the fine details, especially of the hands and eyes. In a really nicely crafted (if not somewhat predicatable) final plot turn, Pixar cleverly challenges us to confront just how alive WALL•E and EVE have become, how far we've been transported in the last 100 minutes of play and adventure.
In the final assessment, Pixar has taken a number of tried-and-true strands and rewoven them into a tale both familiar and yet also distinctly unique in character. WALL-E will stand the test of time, but in light of the nature of the film's opening, we strongly recommend big-screen viewage, the better to absorb this stunning masterclass in animation and nuanced non-verbal performance.
Oh, and don't be late to the cinema - the short film before the main event is absolute gold as well.
Adele Kirby
Buy 'N Large.
Biography has sat in at an advance screening and Q&A of Pixar's new sure-fire hit, WALL•E (pronounced Wally), and even though no-one else in the office had even heard of it yet, stickers are being handed out and much fanfare is being made.
Not so long ago, Italy's Naples made headlines around the world as the city found itself literally disappearing under an extraodinarily mismanaged mountain of trash. Pixar has simply imagined this on a global scale - but never fear, space is no longer the final frontier, and handily the Buy 'N Large company will not only ship mankind out into the big black, but will clean the planet up as well while we're cruising around having a jolly.
Or so they say. In reality, just one little Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class (our eponymous hero, WALL•E ) is left on Earth, and mankind is being subjected to endless enforced pleasure and leisure on the cruise ships. If this is heaven, trust us, it ain't pretty.
Structurally speaking, WALL•E has a classic voyage and return plot, ably aided and abetted by a good old fashioned quest; the conquering of the monster (Hal, anyone?); a strong underlying theme about rebirth; and of course it's all bound together by the moving love story between a star-struck garbage compactor and an aloof, surprisingly violent Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator. They were obviously trying very hard to call her EVE. Ok, so it's not always subtle, but the film delivers such a beautifully intergrated combination of comedy and pathos that one becomes very receptive to the moral message (look after the planet, people) driving the story forward.
The Q&A was with the lovely Directing Animator Angus MacLane, who discussed the difficulty Pixar had in pitching the idea of a film about an almost speechless trash machine and his companion cockroach, set largely on a wasteland earth, to the financiers. Have we mentioned that the first 45 minutes of WALL-E are almost dialogue free? If not don't worry, you'll be hearing all about it soon. Joss Whedon's landmark Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode 'Hush' drew massive accolade for it's 45 minutes of silence, and Pixar have repeated this feat, and then some.
But Angus explained that rather than being a problem, imposing limitations - such as having to work with non-verbal characters - actually becomes a wide open door to creativity. Indeed, his animators have delivered phenomenal performances from the film's stars. The characters, that is - you probably won't have heard of most of the voice actors, but then agan, it's arguable that the studio itself is all the drawcard its films need. Pixar is developing an A-list reputation all of its own.
And how much expression can a small rattly box have, I hear you ask? You have no idea. As with people, the character really comes out in the fine details, especially of the hands and eyes. In a really nicely crafted (if not somewhat predicatable) final plot turn, Pixar cleverly challenges us to confront just how alive WALL•E and EVE have become, how far we've been transported in the last 100 minutes of play and adventure.
In the final assessment, Pixar has taken a number of tried-and-true strands and rewoven them into a tale both familiar and yet also distinctly unique in character. WALL-E will stand the test of time, but in light of the nature of the film's opening, we strongly recommend big-screen viewage, the better to absorb this stunning masterclass in animation and nuanced non-verbal performance.
Oh, and don't be late to the cinema - the short film before the main event is absolute gold as well.
Adele Kirby
