WALL•E

My journalistic skills leave a lot to be desired but here is my attempt at a review of Pixar’s latest offering ‘Wall•E’.

When Disney first imagined making movies all those years ago there was a sense of magic in the air, Snow White was an awe inspiring, giant leap, in film-making. Pushing the very limits of creativity and technology to bring people an experience like never before with a story so appealing that even Hitler would warm to it. He continued to push the envelope, creating imagination factories and inventing new and inventive ways to improve the quality of his films and every film that came out of the disney factory was just instant classic, Bambi, Pinnochio, Jungle Book etc etc. However, the years have rolled on and the quality of films slipped. Was it the death of walt himself or was it that the magic was slowly burning out and the films became diluted. The films began to appeal more and more to ‘Just the kids’, sure they looked glossy, sure they sounded great but that all essential magic sparkle just wasn’t there any more. Then came Pixar…

Pixar did for digital films what Disney did for the cell animated film, they pushed the boundaries, they created a magic in the air and told great stories. Toy Story was an instant classic, both kids and adults rejoiced. Pixar continued to produce excellent films one after another with instant success, sure there were a few that didn’t quite make into realm of classics and you could argue that the films since ‘toy story’ have been nothing more than commercial and marketing genius. All that said, Pixar makes movies they know will sell. Films they can sell tshirts, toys and mugs to go along with. Fun films like the Incredibles and the fantastic Ratatuoille, heart warming films like Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc.

All of this had prepared me to watch another great commercially successfull and somewhat gimmicky New film full of American accents, Wall•e. But what happened next was a surprise…

WALL•E is without doubt an instant classic. This film is full of magic, and charm. It is a brave venture for pixar. The films central character wall•e has 3 words for the entire film and even the rest of the characters barely speak throughout. The films looks amazing, sounds amazing and FEELS amazing. The humour is slapstick and done to perfection, and the emotions are up and down throughout the film. Its quite amazing that a few pixels on a computer screen and a few beeps and boops from a speaker can create so much chemistry. It’s full of creativity, universal humour and emotion.

Its very hard to review this film, because its very hard to put your finger on why its soooo good, suffice to say that it just is. Will go down in my top 5 of all time, animation classics!
5/5

Dan