Movie Review - WALL-E

The high-price of movie tickets is inconvenient but tolerable when the movies are good. Of late, Hollywood has produced a fairly good run of flicks. I enjoy the special-effects in particular and, though the plots are often a rehash, I am not greatly disturbed by the lack of writing creativity.

Enter WALL-E.

The plot is simple enough- humans screw up the world with our waste and leave for a short trip. Hoping to return someday, we leave a cadre of robots behind to clean up our mess. The WALL-E class of robots slowly falls apart as one-by-one they fail. WALL-E keeps himself going by cannibalizing parts from failed robots and, over 700 years develops a human-like personality that collects the unique and beautiful.

Humans periodically send robots to Earth to search for evidence that life is possible.

When WALL-E finds a vine and saves it as part of his collection of beautiful things, the robot "EVE" collects the vine and the two of them begin the process of bringing people back to Earth.

Along the way, they fall in love.

Simple enough... So here is what makes me rank this movie among the three best movies of the last 20 years.

The love between WALL-E and EVE is clean and fresh. It is noble and selfless.

For example, WALL-E spends three seasons trying to get EVE to wake up, just so that he can be with her. He shields her from the sun and rain, exposing himself to the same elements. He tries to keep her warm in the snow, even though he freezes himself. In short, everything he does is designed not to show off for her but to serve her, to anticipate and meet her needs.

In return, EVE repeatedly faces destruction to save WALL-E from more advanced robots who seek to destroy him and the vine, rather than having people return to Earth.

Their love is eventually expressed with the simple action of holding hands.

The artwork is fresh and vibrant. The humor is delightful, with a combination of slapstick and clever plays on words and shots at human faults and frailties.

In short, this is the best Disney-Pixar film since The Lion King.