Synopsis:

What if mankind had to leave Earth, and somebody forgot to turn the last robot off? After hundreds of lonely years of doing what he was built for, WALLE (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) discovers a new purpose in life (besides collecting knick-knacks) when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE. EVE comes to realize that WALL*E has inadvertently stumbled upon the key to the planet's future, and races back to space to report her findings to the humans (who have been eagerly awaiting word that it is safe to return home). Meanwhile, WALL*E chases EVE across the galaxy and sets an adventure into motion. Joining WALL*E on his journey across the universe is a cast of characters including a pet cockroach and a heroic team of malfunctioning misfit robots.

5 User Reviews (click to jump): The Freak: C, Laura: D+, Jen: C-, Chana: C, Matt: B-

The Freak's Rating: C : When Disney first met with Pixar about an acquisition, Pixar pitched 5 movie ideas to them: Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life, Cars, Monster's Inc. and Wall-E.  Wall-E had much promise.  A cute little robot animated as only Pixar will be able to, will be abandoned on a planet by himself.  He'll find a way to be a hero and ultimately be the toy that every child in America wants.  In good company, Wall-E was placed on the shelf and timed to be the final of the series.  Pixar, though typically miles ahead of Dreamworks when it comes to animation quality, could take a lesson from them on storytelling.  Kung Fu Panda, the most recent release from Dreamworks, is a much better piece of family entertainment.

Pixar has yet to fail at voiceover casting, and they do well here.  Casting Curb Your Enthusiasm's Jeff Garlin as the only recognizable voice in the film (the Captain) is a good choice as most people wouldn't recognize him if they saw him, yet alone heard him.  John Ratzenberger (Cliff from Cheers) continues his streak of appearing in every Pixar film as a random human.  Outside of those two, a fan might recognize Sigourney Weaver as the voice of the ship's computer, but that is it.  This does help to lend the film believability and doesn't force the audience to spend the entire running time going, "who is that?". 

The animation in Wall-E is some of the best I've ever seen...in parts.  Mannerisms are done beautifully with Wall-E on the planet Earth.  Wall-E is captured so well in fact, that you really can't help but love the little guy.  He makes you laugh and feel sad for him as if he is a creature, a wonderful testament to the advancements in the animation over the last decade.  As Wall-E reaches out to EVE as a chance for a friendship he longs for, you can't help but root for him.  Landscapes are as real as you'll ever see them and texture mapping is fantastically gritty and authentic.  Pixar continues to amaze me with their ability to capture realism in a computer.  Then we shift to the human animation, which is surprisingly normal.  Humans aren't getting more real as animation ages, they are just cartoony it seems.  The people look like they are out of the original Toy Story and should really have progressed further than they have.  Dreamworks did a much better job of human animation with Bee Movie.  I was also curious why when showing the Captains of ships past, all of them appeared human except for the current, which was of course a cartoon.  When scenes were shown of the planet Earth, they were shown of humans, not cartoons.  Be consistent with either animation or live action!

Ignoring the logistics that a VHS tape could survive 700 years, Wall-E's only link to what he believes human relationships consist of is Hello Dolly.  This is an interesting move and one that won't unite audience support nearly as much as, say, Grease would have.  Had Wall-E been longing for his lost EVE and Hopelessly Devoted To You played, I don't think I could've stopped smiling.  Song/musical choice was a mistake here, as many other critics have noted.

The politics of Wall-E have some people stirred up, but I don't feel any kids will get the message.  At worst case, I'd guess parents may have to explain why saving a planet is important, something I don't think they should be unfamiliar with doing in the first place.  That said, the destruction of the earth by major corporations goes a bit far and the point is received, then driven down our throats over and over.  Humanity's laziness is also shown repetitively.  These two plot points are quite annoying and take the focus off of the characters we should be enjoying.

With such a cute character as Wall-E, my hopes were higher for this one, but with many holes in the script, overstressed themes and bipolar animation it falls flat.  I am glad I saw it, to enjoy the lovability of Wall-E and the advancement in animation, but it needed another year or two of work.  Go see Kung Fu Panda instead.

Laura's Rating: D+ : I couldn't give this movie a "C" rating because I'm not glad that I saw it.  This movie is the story of WALL-E the robot and his robot friend EVE as they try to restore the world by saving one tiny green plant. 

There are a few problems with this movie.  One is that you don't actually start to understand what the movie is about until 1/2 way through.  Also, for probably the first 1/3 of the movie, there is no talking (which to me is just kind of boring).  Another problem with this movie is that the character development is poor.  Even though WALL-E and EVE are super cute, I wasn't feeling their relationship like I thought I should.  The other problem with this movie is that it pushes a political agenda which just bothers the living you-know-what out of me.  If you watch this movie, you will know what that agenda is.  Basically it portrays big successful companies (think Wal-Mart) as the  destruction of the Earth and pushes what will happen if we nasty humans don't "take care of" the Earth.  Barf....we get it. 

On the positive side, there were some cute parts of the movie and of course the characters are adorable.  My kids (ages 4 and 2) were more interested in their popcorn then watching the actual movie.  I would not buy this movie when it is released on DVD and I would not recommend it to any of my friends with young kids.  Elementary age kids might enjoy this movie a little more.  The animation in the movie is amazing, but to me, the story is what is most important and it just didn't do it for me.  It definitely cannot compare to the likes of Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Cars. 

Jen's Rating: C- : This movie just wasn't that great.  I personally think it's getting such great reviews because of the "save the earth" message it has.  I agree with Laura that it has a specific message it's trying to send and it gets a little over the top at times, like when the fat people fall onto each other and when they try to walk.  A lot of those parts were very unnecessary.  I don't think there's anything wrong with that positive message, they just could've made it a little less degrading towards humans and a little more subliminal.  I left feeling a little guilty and convicted which isn't how a Disney movie should leave you.  The message could be applied in life but like Laura said, really mostly with older children. 

This movie was also lacking in music and comedy.  The music is what makes movies such as Aladdin, Little Mermaid, Cinderella and even Cars so memorable.  Music would've added a lot to this movie.  And it's the comedy that makes movies like A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo and Toy Story so classic.  In fact most Disney movies lately have so many hilarious parts that only adults understand while the movie is still very entertaining for little kids.  This movie did not have that, it hardly even had any talking!!

Animation - Of course outstanding!  But that should only add to the movie experience, not make or break it.

Hello Dolly - Scott and I were talking about this and agreed that it was a strange favorite for Wall-E to have.  Maybe it was the only movie he found though?

Character Development - I think they did an ok job with this.  I thought it was adorable how Wall-E took care of her and then she took care of him too and I really did believe that they liked each other.  It was just hard because they didn't talk much.

Overall - Like the rating says, it was ok.  I could see myself as a little kid possibly wanting a toy Wall-E to put things in his "belly" but other than that it would be at the bottom of the list of favorites from Disney.  Scott said there were 5 original stories that were brought to Disney from Pixar and this is the order I would rate them:

A Bug's Life
Finding Nemo
Cars
Monsters Inc
Wall-E

Chana's Rating: C : went today and saw this with dad and 4 and 7 yr. old....3 yr. old was lost half through...7 yr. old was ok. i agree with my dad, it is an adult aimed show with adult themes....no good music, cute, you couldn't help but love wall e, but hard for kids... worth 50 bucks for tickets and food? nope...

Matt's Rating: B- : I had heard mixed reviews of Wall-E before I decided to watch it.  Most girls I talked to didn't seem to care for it while most guys thought it was a really good movie.  One of my friends from work, a girl, thought the reason why this might be is that women need to have more dialogue in their movies for them to enjoy it while men can get by with little to know dialogue, kind of like real life.  I can see where she got this view.  I really had no problem with the lack of talking, I noticed it but it didn't take away from the movie.  Anyone will fall in love with Wall-E because you feel for such a cute robot who obviously has human emotions. 

This movie reminded me more of cars because it had such a political message.  I didn't have a problem with the message, keeping the planet clean and taking joy in what we have is something kids need to learn.  Sure you can play video games that allow you to simulate baseball, basketball and who knows what else but you can't get the full experience of swinging the bat and making great contact with a fastball, no matter how much the Nintendo Wii tells you otherwise.

Unfortunately this movie just missed.  Not enough laughs is what really held it back.  The good thing about Pixar movies is that usually they have a good mix of adult and children humor but this movie didn't have too much of that.  It was mostly a mix of  children's humor with an adult message.  The movie was on the lower end of Pixar films for me. I would still recommend it to people but with a warning that it might not be what they are expecting with such little dialogue.

Mikayla's Rating: A : I like that Wall-e is cute and he put bras on his eyes. There were fat people-that's silly.  Wall-e was so funny.

Brian's Rating: B : It goes without saying, but the animation in this one is amazing.  It is amazing that you can be drawn in to a couple of robot characters in an animated world with no dialog.  The cute budding love story that comes from the meeting of EVE and WALL-E is fun to watch, sad to watch, and as Scott said, you can't help but pull for the little guy.

The movie starts to head south as soon as humans are introduced.  I don't have a problem with the cartoony animation of the humans because I think this is done on purpose.  Pixar focuses on the non-humans and I think chooses to make the humans less of a focused character.  When a human does need to be a character, they do spruce it up (Ratatouille).  What I did find annoying were the 2 things Scott mentioned.  They over-exaggerated messages of human laziness, and earth care.  I mean, come on!!  Do you expect me to believe for a second that there would not exist even a single human being that would want to take care of his body out of personal pride?

More on the humans.  What bothered me most was not the cartoony animation, but the complete and total lack of characterization.  They could have just been zombie automatons and had the same effect.

Overall, I thought the movie was good.  The story was cute, the animation was great, and the first half of the movie, as well as the non-human parts of the rest are very endearing.  I would recommend it, but its not nearly as good as other Pixar films.  If you as 5 different Pixar fans, they'll probably tell you 5 different #1 Pixar movies (mine is Ratatouille), but I bet all 5 would not pick this one.

Sebastian's Rating: A : Have no idea why everyone hates this movie?

I saw this movie twice in the cinemas. it made me laugh, it made me mooshy, it made me smile, and it made me happy. The charator develeptment was amazingly well done, without words. The storyline was fun and there were alot of messages in this movie. Some people find fat people falling over wasn't funny, but thats ok, there are still some important messages in this movie. Like when two of the people fall off there chair, and look around, and after taking there eyes of the screen, they realise that theres a pool! it's kind of like saying we're so stuck in technology that we don't realise what's around us.

this movie will not only entertain kids, but adults. i reccommened it to everyone out there who is looking for a good animated film. for me, it wins one of the best films of the year.

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