Friday, June 27, 2008

by Ari

Pixar is obviously the most reliable and creative studio when it comes to animation. All ages can enjoy whatever Pixar offers, but I think it's fair to say the overall aim is more sophisticated than anything done by competeing studios such as Dreamworks or Fox. Pixar is the Studio Ghibli of America - a talented group of inspired artists who love to explore the imagination with powerful state-of-the-art technology and a wealth of inspiration. Behind the incomparable Brad Bird (writer/director of one of last year's best films, Ratatouille), director Andrew Stanton is arguably the most intriguing new voice. Finding Nemo was a great success, and while his new film, Wall E, is perhaps a tad too precious and cute at moments, it's still another hit.

For a love story about two robots in a pretty desolate futuristic world, the film makes the most of visual gags and quiet emotion. There's dialogue from time to time, but most of it is used for the few brief moments of exposition on the enormous ship Axiom, a spacecraft that holds the stuffed, overweight population of humans who will someday return to a garbage-filled Earth. On the planet, Wall E spends the day cleaning and organizing trash while discovering the charms of human history and collecting priceless artifacts. He watches Hello, Dolly and dreams of companionship and love. When a quick-shooting probe robot named Eve visits the planet to search for plants, Wall E finds his match. Once Eve is sent back to Axiom to return the specimen she finds, Wall E chases after her and causes all sorts of trouble.

It's a simple story (it should be) and Stanton uses a familiar structure to weave a sweet and visually spectacular journey. It works as a comedy, it works as an innocent love story, and it even works as thoughtful science-fiction at times (plus references to ET, 2001, and more). Not bad for family entertainment. Not bad at all.