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A Day With WALL·E

Posted on Sat Jul 12, 10:49 PM in Movies

We had ambitious plans today. The first didn’t happen: we were gonna get up early to drive to the lake and watch the sunrise, but at 5 a.m. there were thunderstorms rolling through, so we slept through that. However, the second thing did happen: breakfast at Comet Cafe. We split a massive fruit/granola bowl; Dan then had a weird sort of egg burrito which included corned beef and hot sauce and was as big as his head, while I had something called the Commuter Sandwich, which was essentially two eggs how I wanted them, sourdough, cheddar, and added bacon. This, also, was pretty big, making me wonder just how commuter-friendly it was. I had heard about a morning drink called the Booze-latte, which I tried and is delightful: chocolate vodka, ginger brandy, Kahlua, and coffee served on ice… pretty tasty, especially on a hot morning. Dan then walked to a hair appointment while I strolled around Brady Street.

After all that we went home briefly before heading out for a matinee showing of WALL·E. Two misty-eyed 30-somethings exited the theatre and couldn’t stop talking about how cute this movie was. I can see how this might be a children’s movie, because the action and animation combined are pretty engaging. However, I also felt that the first half-hour, which came across to me as dystopian and charming at the same time, might be boring or even scary for a kid. There’s quite a bit happening that would easily go over the head of a child, and I’m not talking about the Warner Brothers type of adult know-what-I-mean stuff. How can a child cut through the layers of subtlety to understand how meaningful it is that in a world devoid of humans, the one lone entity who has no life actually exhibits the most of it and in fact finds, saves, and collects the very last scraps of what makes humans humans? Kids might pick up on the notion that WALL·E enjoys musicals; but how many will get the fact that Hello, Dolly! is the musical in question, a musical with a plot so wrapped up in human interaction and manipulation, and be able to juxtapose that with the reality of the movie, which involves an absolute lack of human interaction, while robots display the most human interaction in the film (or most films, for that matter)?

There are some genuinely touching moments, and they are not rare, and they are all well done. All of them involve robots, and most involve no speaking whatsoever. This says something, I think, both on the part of the writers, and the animators. Despite what we all tell ourselves, or each other, we go to movies to have our emotions freely manipulated. This movie does a remarkable job of that with an economy of means. There are all sorts of nods to past sci-fi films (some I saw, others I didn’t); what I definitely saw were nods to silent films, using the same sort of deft visual communication that Chaplin and Keaton mastered so well. Even the “camera shots” (which I don’t think there really are in animation) went a long way to evoke a feeling or an emotion.

Some reviews I’ve read are dismayed that the middle section of the film feels cheapened, compared to the first section, which is very evocative. I’m not sure I’d want to see a whole movie continue as the first part did, nor would I want to see nothing to farcical chase scenes which serve to extrapolate the plot-at-large. I think it’s well-balanced, and without that special first part of the film, the last part would not work. Both of us agreed that the last bit of the movie had such heart-wrenching moments, but they wouldn’t have registered that way had we not had the set-up and the exposition.

As for the “environmental” and “excesses” messages… hey, no arguments from me. Over the top? Sure, but where subtlety works for one message of the movie, clubs over the head work for the other message.

Lots more to say, but I’d have to reveal much that is great about this film, which I’d rather someone watch and experience for himself. It was charming in all the best ways.