Put simply, WALL-E is the reason I’m a movie fan. I’ve been a PIXAR fanboy for many years. In fact, I’ve been a fan of theirs longer than most others, because it predates Toy Story. I’ve been a follower of the technologies of computer animation ever since seeing (and loving) Tron when I was 7 years old. It’s no secret that PIXAR was partially born out of John Lasseter seeing the production of Tron, having worked at Disney as an animator while it was being produced at the studio (though he didn’t have any involvement with said production). During the 80’s, PIXAR formed and started producing animated shorts, including the likes of Red’s Dream, Tin Toy, Knick Knack and the historic Luxo, Jr. When I initially heard they were going to produce the first fully CG feature film, I was thrilled to see the final product. And I wasn’t the only one, as Toy Story changed the world of animation forever. Since then, PIXAR has been firing on all cylinders, producing hit after hit, in stark defiance to those who continually predicted each film to surely be their first failure. Always imaginative, PIXAR continues to come through, time and time again. They are easily the best thing to happen to Walt Disney Pictures since Walt himself.

Writing: Despite the fact that PIXAR is on the leading edge of technology, always a step ahead of anyone else, it’s not the technical aspects that primarily drive a PIXAR film, it’s the story and character. WALL-E is a different film compared to the rest of their feature length productions. It actually has more in common with their short films. It has a minimal amount of dialog (their short films are notable for their lack of dialog) and is much more rooted in physical performance and precisely choreographed energy and blocking. The character of WALL-E himself may very well be one of the most fundamentally engaging and sympathetic characters ever committed to film (or saved to disk). The determined nature of the character combined with the effortless charm makes it basically impossible to not love him. I’m not typically much for action figures, but I think I will pick up one of the inevitable WALL-E action figures/toys. The story itself is actually rather simple, rooted in a great many science fiction staples and character stories. While PIXAR has proven themselves perfectly capable of more complex storytelling, they have an amazing talent at nailing the most simplistic of ideas and making them endlessly entertaining. Their animated shorts are just such examples. Speaking of which, WALL-E is preceded by yet another wonderful animated short, Presto.

Production: Having said all that, I continue to have my mind blown with each successive PIXAR movie I see. The technical aspects of this production are peerless. The cinematography is simply gorgeous, not to mention wonderfully dynamic. Production design is also spectacular, from the garbage-strewn, used up Earth to the hyper-real world on board the spaceship Axiom. The editing is extremely slick, keeping a brisk and smooth pacing throughout. The computer animation is breathtaking, not just in texture and quality, but in character animation. WALL-E is a remarkably animated character, both drawing on previous robots such as Number 5 or R2-D2, but also as a fantastically original design. We also get to meet a number of other fun robotic characters.

Cast: With such a small amount of dialog, it’s hard to think of the performances in the film in terms of casting. The real star is Ben Burtt, who is interestingly credited as the cast performer for WALL-E, as well as M-O, pretty much giving him top billing. It’s well deserved, as his sound design is a key component to making the character of WALL-E work so well. It’s no surprise that he is able to do such a good job, given the fact that he’s the man responsible for R2-D2 himself. I will be rather shocked if Burtt isn’t at least nominated for a sound award or two come Oscar season next spring. Other voice castings are amusing, such as having the Axiom ship’s computer voiced by none-other-than Sigourney Weaver. Fred Willard gets to perform a first for a PIXAR movie, that of an actual live action character. He’s a fun choice for the role. And of course it wouldn’t be a PIXAR movie without John Ratzenberger performing one of the voices. This time, they amusingly just went ahead and named the character “John.”

Music: While not his greatest score, nor the greatest score for a PIXAR film, Thomas Newman’s score is very good. Actually, Thomas Newman’s other PIXAR score is the best of the PIXAR scores, for Finding Nemo (also for writer/director Andrew Stanton). For WALL-E, Newman balances the ethereal sci-fi with the action and emotion of the film quite nicely. Of course it features Newman’s typical rich orchestration and unique instrumentation. A worthy score to a fantastic film.

I can’t praise this movie enough. Everybody get out there and see this one. I’ll be seeing it again very soon.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 3:10 am and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.