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Apparently, because for its first 30 min., the new Pixar astonishment WALL?E has virtually no dialogue. Nor does it offer a Star Wars--like print crawl to inform viewers that this is Earth 800 years from now. The mechanical critter who is the film's hero can speak only in electronic grunts and sighs, or in one-word bursts, like a chattier R2-D2. The movie's other main creature, a robot named EVE, also can speak only a few words. Yet it's Pixar's big, bold belief that the mass audience will be astute enough to follow...
...works; this is Pixar's most enthralling entertainment since Nemo. A science-fiction epic that starts off as a smart twist on the last-man-on-Earth plot and veers into a fable about humans' overreliance on technology, the movie should connect with audiences of all ages because it stars the most adorable little trash-bot ever. He's less a trash collector than a trash connoisseur, adding new items to the treasures he keeps on shelves in the shack he has built for himself. Hmmm, what about this green thing, a plant sprout, that he found in his foraging...
...spot the fret lines above his eyes and see the carcasses of other robots on the junk heaps, we realize that WALL?E is a lonely guy. There's an instant poignancy to his puttering around the late, great planet Earth like a solitary child on an abandoned playground, or an oldster among his souvenirs. WALL?E's special ache is his nostalgia for a life he never lived, for the intimate connection only humans enjoy. On his home VCR (a Betamax!), he plays and replays two numbers from the 1969 movie musical Hello, Dolly!: the brassy Put on Your...
...only fitting that the last robot on Earth, like the first man, should find his EVE (for Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator). She has been sent as a probe from the gigantic spaceship on which all humans were evacuated 700 years before, and where their descendants live in pampered placidity. EVE is as advanced--smooth, sleek, white, egg-shaped, with glowing blue eyes--as WALL?E is clunky. When he sits next to her on a bench at sunset (he must also have seen Woody Allen's Manhattan) and tries to hold her sort-of hand, EVE rejects...
...technical level, sight meets sound. WALL?E's animation, especially in scenes on Earth, has a photorealistic quality; it looks like a gorgeously arid, live-action waste dump. The appointments of the Axiom, exterior and interior, are as finely detailed as those in any Star Wars or Alien film. Even if the exploits of WALL?E and EVE don't take and break your heart, you'll be impressed by the graphic design...