No matter how you slice it, or how much it's denied, WALL-E is a big fuck-you to America and its state religion - materialism. Severe environmental angst lies at its core, but unlike another film exploiting fear of ecological disaster - The Happening - WALL-E's charm, artistry, and innovation trump any didacticism. And a tacked-on happy ending does little to temper the bittersweet residue derived from the experience.
Fron the get-go, you sense no ordinary animated offering is in the works. In the opening sequence, we zoom into the planet earth from outer space to the sound of, incongruously, a show tune. As "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" from Hello Dolly chirps away on the soundtrack, we enter earth’s hazy atmosphere, spying a multitude of skyscrapers, signifiers of a teeming metropolis and an abundance of civilization. But closer in still, some buildings become giant towers of garbage, competing with the other structures for geographical prominence. Finally at street level, decay, and dilapidation reign, and old billboards for the "Buy n Large" corporation litter the streets. It's clear the earth has become an abandoned wasteland.
Yet, one sign of life remains – WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class), a plucky little bucket-of-bolts whose on-button was never shut off. He assiduously fulfills his sole function – scooping debris, compacting it, and stacking the cubes in neat vertical piles. With economic efficiency, the visuals communicate all you need to know of the back-story: A mega-corporation taking over everything, out-of-control consumerism, and the resulting environmental devastation, forcing humans off the planet. The desolation of the landscape juxtaposed with the frivolity of the song creates a bitter sense of irony, a scene comic yet full of a certain rage, like the musical coda of Dr Strangelove, or Charlton Heston at the end of Planet of the Apes, damning his ancestors to hell in front of a severed Statue of Liberty.
WALL-E performs his Sisyphean task with heartbreaking conscientiousness. While the human race may have given up on the place, he has not. Humanity's last fan, he, along with his cockroach sidekick (the only other living thing on the planet), sifts through the debris for artifacts that merit salvaging. Finding a diamond ring in a box, he chucks the ring and keeps the container. Other items - a light bulb, a Rubik’s cube - he carefully hoards in his makeshift shelter, a bulwark against fierce dust storms that intermittently sweep the planet. His most treasured item: A tape of Hello Dolly, which he watches repeatedly. Emulating each step of the "Sunday Best" number by robotic heart, he dances along with the actors on-screen.
WALL-E’s routine is interrupted when a much more advanced - and female - piece of machinery lands -- the probe EVE. EVE, a glistening, streamlined drink-of-oil, is capable of great destruction, obliterating with a laser beam anything she finds threatening. But WALL-E gamely follows her around like a devoted AIBO, trying to divine her mysterious purpose. Drawing on the romanticism he has learned from the musical, he falls in love.
The first 35 minutes or so of WALL-E are lyrical and lovely, with no dialogue spoken except for that on the video and the beeps, whirrs, and pings of the robots. The film takes a much more conventional turn when EVE and WALL-E head back into space. It’s then we finally see what has become of the human race. (Not to give anything away, but walk around any suburban mall at lunchtime, and you'll see the film's vision of mankind's future may be nearer in time than the 28th century represented here.)
Some may feel the filmmakers betray the quietly unfolding drama of the opening by letting loose the dogs of animation in the movie's latter part. Perhaps someone at Pixar realized they were dead on-course for downersville and demanded last-minute heroics inconsistent with the set-up. (Fellow critic Harold Check, however, says it wasn't the beginning, but the unmerited happy ending that depressed him, as resorting to such a ridiculous resolution only served to highlight the hopelessness of humanity's real position for him.)
It's true that by yielding to what can only be described as the exigencies of commercialism, the filmmakers have snatched "Enjoyable Entertainment" from the jaws of "Masterpiece." Still, this is a special movie; a true critique of the consumerist mindset existing withing the bounds of an unassuming animated sci-fi/comedy. At one point, the CEO of Buy N Large (Fred Willard), appears giving orders from behind a presidential-looking lectern with what looks to be the seal of the United States behind him. But upon closer inspection, we see it's really the Buy n Large corporate logo. The message couldn’t be any clearer – a monolithic private enterprise has taken over all the functions of government, leading to an almost extinction-level catastrophe.
Without this grand theme, the robotic love story wouldn't play half as touching. WALL-E's aping of the distilled emotional warmth of musical comedy represents an optimism and hope of renewal that belies the oceans of garbage decorating the deadened earth.
WALL-E is a warning wrapped in a poem. I can't think of a more affecting animated film.
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