WALL·E (2008) Review

Lucas Versantvoort / 19 September 2014

WALL·E is one of those, quite frankly, magical experiences that you simply have to see (and considering the date of this review probably already have). Pixar was already a household name by 2008, having effectively taken up Disney’s mantle and producing films like Toy Story and Finding Nemo. WALL·E was different however. For the first time, Pixar would engage in overt social criticism. The people at Pixar had already dabbled in social criticism somewhat with the suburban setting in The Incredibles and the satire on communism in A Bug’s Life, but that was all relatively subtle. Granted, depending on the viewer, what might be symbolic or subtle for one might be obvious for the other, but we can at least say Pixar was operating on the level of subtext. With WALL·E however, Pixar was ready and willing to dive into full-on political overtones.

            The film begins with roughly a half hour section featuring absolutely zero dialogue. It is the year 2805 and the earth has turned into a giant garbage-filled wasteland after decades of consumer culture etc. As the earth’s population as boarded highly advanced spaceships and ventured into space, many trash compactor robots are deployed on Earth to clean up the mess, so that humans can eventually return. We follow one of these robots, Wall-E, as he goes about his daily life, cleaning and retreating to his home, a storage truck where he displays the all-too human traits of fawning over clips of Hello Dolly! and living with his pet cricket. One has to wonder why robots whose only purpose is to clean even need A.I that grants them all these human traits. (Because it makes him a likeable protagonist of course.) Eventually, another robot arrives, Eve (can you smell that religious symbolism?), whose job, it turns out, is to analyze whether the earth can support vegetation. They slowly but surely bond, but Eve freaks out once she sees the little plant Wall-E found, stores it inside her ‘body’ and goes into standby mode. Eventually a ship arrives and takes Eve, with Wall-E clinging on the ship. The ship docks at an even larger ship, the Axiom, functioning as a city, with many people living their lives onboard. These people have all become morbidly obese, living without purpose and relying on the ship’s automated systems to sustain them. As Wall-E tries to help Eve, they become embroiled in what is basically a quest to bring the people back to Earth, ‘where they belong’.

            First of all, I’ll rave about the things that are easy to rave about, starting with the visuals which look positively dazzling. When watching Studio Ghibli films I appreciate how they often go for the ‘authentic,’ handcrafted art style, but armed with computers, the people at Pixar are able to create a dazzlingly believable Earth and Axiom that would be nigh impossible to imitate in all its detail if done purely by hand. If one of animation’s primary purposes is to transport the audience to another world, then Wall-E is an unequivocal success in that regard.

The character of Wall-E is also a stunning achievement simply due to the fact he has zero dialogue (in the traditional sense). He doesn’t speak, but is able to communicate with others (and us) through an array of expressive animations and sounds created and voiced by Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt. Pixar’s extraordinary success in bringing Wall-E to life is easily half this film’s success. You can’t tell me you didn’t try to imitate Wall-E’s voice at least once…

Speaking of the film’s success, this is also partly due to its Highly Serious political and social subject matter which is executed in a way that is essentially too simple, but peppered with enough humor that it’s still easy to appreciate. Messages like ‘we have to take care of the earth,’ ‘the earth is our true home’ and ‘(American) consumer culture is ruining our world and lives’ are on full display here, for better and for worse. Quite a few times I found the way these Big Messages were communicated a bit too Captain Obvious, but the mostly excellent comedy (including a great parody on Hal 9000 from 2001) ensured the film never devolved into annoying pretentiousness. The comedy was Pixar knowingly winking at the audience, balancing the threat of self-importance the film’s messages might be perceived to carry. There’s a part of me that realizes this film is also made for children and obviously can’t become a dissertation on politics, but since Pixar films are also made for adults, I have a tendency to roll my eyes at the sometimes too easy cultural critique and jokes (like the fat Americans). This may sound like nitpicking, but I feel WALL·E can be held to a higher standard on this front as this was the first Pixar film to deal with societal issues upfront and not just on the level of subtext.

            I also didn’t like the Big Dramatic Moment at the end, when Eve tries to repair Wall-E, only to end up reverting him to his original programming, making him a hollow husk of his former self. Here, there is the threat that the Wall-E we’ve all come to know and love has symbolically ‘died’. But anyone with a functioning cerebellum would know this film wasn’t going to end with Wall-E Dying For Our Sins, but that he would be revived and what clichéd better way to do it than with a farewell kiss from Eve. Unsurprisingly Wall-E is back to his usual self and the film ends, with the people ready to repopulate earth. Though a short scene (and though I like the focus on Wall-E’s eyes, again showing how he is the biggest part of the film’s success), this is easily the low point of the film, because in retrospect I realize it’s the same cheap emotional manipulation as we would see later in Pixar’s Toy Story 3, when our favorite gang of toys are ready to embrace death-by-furnace…only to be saved at the last minute. It’s that cheap bullshit that aims to make the audience experience a character’s death without actually killing said character. It just makes me roll my eyes and anxiously wait until the scene’s over.

            All in all though, this just might be Pixar’s best film, because it manages to combine many disparate elements into a mostly satisfying whole. The visuals are stunning and believable, the amount of details are reason enough to watch it again, Wall-E himself is a study in nonverbal communication and how to evoke emotions in an audience through nonverbal means, the more overt political messages are relevant and effective and work more or less and when they don’t, the excellent humor is always there to soften the blow.

Random observations:

-I find it interesting that the openings of both WALL·E and Up are the best parts of the film. Before the film goes into Serious Mode, it’s incredibly moving and enchanting to just see Wall-E go about his business. Pretty much the same goes for Up which had such a moving opening that it ended up emphasizing just how by-the-numbers the rest of the film was. 

-Could someone explain to me why Slumdog Millionaire won the Oscar for Sound Mixing when the first part of WALL·E is nothing but sound?