Wall-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)

One of the many huge blind spots in my film viewing (along with musicals, horror, and gay-panic comedies) is silent films -- off-hand, I think I've only seen Birth of a Nation, Metropolis, and The Passion of Joan of Arc. That's pretty terrible for someone who's a film teacher. Now, after seeing Wall-E, I'm even more eager to finally see more silent films, especially those of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, since Pixar people supposedly watched a lot of those while making this movie.

I absolutely loved the first half-hour of the movie, which was pretty much dialogue-free as Wall-E traversed a post-apocalyptic landscape, engaging in the Sisyphean task of compacting garbage for a race of people who no longer lived there. Re-reading that sentence and reminding yourself that Pixar made this movie, you can understand why this could only go on for so long. It's not that Pixar shies away from more adult-oriented thematic material, but this was abstracted to the point of avant-garde, considering the mainstream appeal of Pixar. I thought Kenneth Turan put it pretty well in his review when he said "the company has an uncanny gift for pushing things further without pushing too far."

Turan, like most other critics, goes on to say that the second half of the film is more predictable and formulaic but, also like pretty much every critic, gives it a pass. I'm tempted to agree. I did think the film got a little preachy once the humans entered the film and the chase scenes didn't do much for me, but I realize that pretty much every Pixar film (or any mainstream Hollywood film, really) is going to have stuff like that to draw in the kiddies. It's not that I wanted a completely unhappy ending (I wanted Wall-E and Eve to end up together -- I'm not made of stone), but I didn't think the film needed that happy ending AND the rest of humanity finding redemption. Like my lovely wife said, "I could've done without the humans altogether." Then again, that might make this more like The Road, which might not go over as well with the under-8 set. 

One last reaction from my lovely wife, who's eight months pregnant (did I mention she's lovely?): she just asked me why none of the other Wall-E robots were still running. I pointed out that she had no problem believing that a robot had the full range of human emotions. "That's not that unbelievable to me," she said. "I anthropomorphize everything." That's true. She currently sleeps with five pillows to help support her, um, well, everything. Anyway, she named the one she drapes her arm across "Clooney."