Paperjam

Wall-E

Film // Nick // 27th July 2008

On an average Sunday night, when we had nothing better to do than watch repeats of Doctor Who or the latest isn't so nice and undemanding drama-light on the TV, or simply gently cuddle up to the hangover and see if a bit of TLC would make it fuck off, we decided that the latest Pixar creation Wall-E might have a similar affect.

I must admit I'd read a couple of reviews which gave a little too much away, so was expecting fairly good things from this - unfortunately some of the subtly observed plays on modern life early on were already telegraphed because of this - but it stood up well.

First of all, the animation. It is simply stunning. It manages to create a kind of solid effect, as if you are watching genuine 3d reality just cut down to the silver screen. This is clever, but this sort of animation came good back when The Invincibles came out. What they've managed to do here is marry this to the kind of sweeping filmscapes of the classic Japanese animators such as Miyazaki of 'Spirited Away' fame. Part of the beauty is that they've managed to make a vision of Earth that is trashed aesthetically attractive, a probable deliberate irony.

Secondly, the script. There isn't much of it, certainly in the earlier part of the film. The two main characters, Wall-E and EVE are robots with a one, possibly three word at-a-push vocabulary. It is such a breath of fresh air for a film to allow the viewer to imply, rather than have pages of exposition mainlining the plot to an atrophied celleberum.

To be honest, the latter part of the film somewhat loses the plot, being a fairly average satire on the way lazy consumer society is going. You know the old joke about us evolving to have just one huge thumb to switch the remote - this isn't there, but it may as well have been. It also has a classic consumer focus happy ending. However this is lightened by some good comedic moments: the sub 2001 HAL automatic pilot; the wonderful character of the cleaning robot 'mop'; and the berserker massage 'bot particularly made me laugh.

Overall, a sumptuous feast for the eyes, a little less so for the mind, but still a large cut above most Hollywood efforts. Despite all the visual effort, it still is at heart a fairly simple morality / fairy tale, and so falls short of the truly great animated features.

It is not as downright entertaining as the likes of Toy Story, Shrek or similar - that was never its intention - but its pretensions of grandeur don't manage to hit the heights of art-house animation due to the weak second half. It sits slightly awkwardly in the middle. That said, I want to see it again, as I think it will benefit from repeat viewings far more than most films I've seen in the last year or so, which is no small recommendation.

As a final point - watch the end credits. Wittiest and most entertaining I've seen for donkeys years.