So it took robots to teach our movies how to love again.

Waste Allocation Load Lifter (Earth-class), better known as the titular hero, is a trash compactor that was never told to stop working. So even as the earth has turned into a massive wasteland, Wall-E heads out to work every day. The lack of instruction and purpose have given him more time than he can deal with, and so he watches an old musical and collects little keepsakes -- rubik's cubes and shiny lighters -- and separates them from the trash he so diligently, rustily crushes into cubes.

And then he falls in love.

One of the finest animated films ever made, this Pixar production is special because of the universality of emotion, and the wordlessness holding together this robotic romance. The first half of the film has nary a word -- and yet it grips us all in awestruck, smiling stupefaction -- and while the second is a fun ride with humans around, the satire is sharp and pointing to all of us.

In this scene, Wall-E leaves his storage unit in the morning and, amidst an apocalyptic wasteland, tells his cockroach friend to stay inside. He heads out, our binocular-eyed little hero, rummaging amidst trash, picking a brassiere here, a soft toy there. He opens a box and finds a sparkling engagement ring. Wall-E shakes it back and forth a few times before discarding the diamond and keeping the box, clearly fascinated by its hinge. After a clumsy, critical moment with a fire extinguisher, he continues stacking garbage cubes -- and the camera pulls out to show us the extent, the irreparability of the damage overconsumerism has done to the planet.

It's a film dripping with genius. And with grins.

Also Read: Review: Wall E

Back

|

Next