Walls and Es

Sometimes, you just have to go do things. Like, for instance, putting down a bunch of Dew and staying up till 2:30am to see Pixar's latest masterpiece, even though you still have to get up at 7am for work.

The last time I stayed up for a midnight showing, it was for 10,000 B.C., and it was only because I was bored. I wanted to get out and do something fun, and I decided that that film would only be entertaining if it was really late anyway. I was right.

My reasoning for catching WALL-E last night was quite different. I wanted to see it more than anything. I have, over the past few years, become a devoted disciple of all things Pixar. This company is making the best family films of our generation--also the best animations, and the best comedies. I say of our generation, but it's possible that I could replace those two words with one word: "ever."

WALL-E had to be good. It was from the same people whose worst film to date (Cars) was still heads and shoulders above every other animation that year without question. I only didn't like it because it wasn't PIXAR good. It was good, just not phenomenally, extravagantly, perfectly wonderful like pretty much everything else they've done. But then they shaped up and put out that Rat movie, and proved that they hadn't lost anything. They're still the best, and they'll continue to break their own records for greatness with each passing year.

This was the promise they made with Ratatoille, and it's the promise they kept with WALL-E.

I won't go over plot details because they're everywhere. The best I can give you is my personal response to this exquisitely touching film. And my response was exactly that: I was touched. I was touched by all of the things they tried and succeeded to do with 97 divine minutes of animation. It lacked nothing in comedy, but if even if it hadn't been funny, it would have been beautiful - the cinematography was stunning beyond words (yes, cinematography can be appropriately used in the context of animation.) And even if it had been neither funny nor beautiful, it would have been touching. When was the last time something "cute" brought tears to your eyes? I'm a hard sell for cute. Most of the time, when something goes for cute, I go for the mental ax, and then whatever it was that was supposed to be "cute" ends up mangled and covered in blood in my mind.

But WALL-E broke my heart. I've, seriously, never seen anything more adorable on screen.

Along the same lines, one of the best kept secrets of this film is what a spectacular character Eve turns out to be. You don't get that from the previews or any of the other promotional stuff. Other reviewers have mentioned it sparingly, but listen, there was no way I could be prepared for how wonderful "she" was. I had no concept of what kind of a character WALL-E's crush would be, so I was blown away by it.

The last surprise was the message. Make no mistake, this is a Green movie. But there is no possible way Pixar could have delivered this particular message with more power, and more taste, than they did. And it worked. Amazingly, it worked. My personal aversion to the latest fashion of environmentalism could have very easily ruined this film for me. But it didn't. Instead, I gave the whole package a nod and just went right on loving this movie with my whole heart.

WALL-E won't even have to blink to get the Oscar for best animated feature this year. But it is also unquestionably the best film to grace the cinema so far this year, and the only other movie that will challenge its position for the rest of the year will be The Dark Knight. That's saying a lot, considering the quality of this summer's blockbusters, and the fact that I'm already sort of planning on Knight becoming one of my top ten favorite films of all time as soon as I see it.

But for now, I'm with the robot. Thus the chorus of adoring praise for this film gains one more voice.