30th
I have feared overstating and overselling Wall*E. But I realized that perhaps I knew no one with greater expectations than myself for the decidedly idiosyncratic tale of an existentially confused and hopelessly romantic robot. And if I felt floored and utterly satisfied, who wouldn’t be?
Great art comments on the immediate and the universal, and Wall*E does both sublimely. It takes the incredibly pointed and sharp satire of Idiocracy and makes it funny, on-target, and work within the plot structure. While some have found the sudden shift in narrative scope and focus jarring, I was swept away by the arrival of Eve and the sudden exodus off Earth to the home of Huxley and Orwell’s worst nightmares.
The heart and soul evident in each frame and texture shines throughout the picture and creates characters and a romance that reached Eternal Sunshine heights. The film offers so much for the intellect (references from Keaton to Gilliam to Kubrick; haunting images of dust-filled cities to dirty to see beyond your face; towers of trash that equal the towers of man, reaching like Babel to touch the sky; a violent and loud “FUCK YOU” to specific corporations and types of people; the homogenization of goods, services, and man; and more!), but in the end, the spark of true connection, of love, transcends time, waste, and hardware as you hope and pray that Wall*E can become a real boy.
