Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: WALL-E ::
by William the Bloody
In the not-too-distant future, the megacorporation Buy N Large runs and owns everything both politically and economically. This turns out to be not such a good thing as it doesn’t take long for the entire planet Earth to become overwhelmed with unrecycled waste and pollution. Buy N Large’s solution is to sponsor a mass exodus of the planet where all the people will live in outer space cruise liners while robots clean up Earth. Seven hundred years later, mankind is still in space and Earth cannot maintain life. Unless you count WALL-E. He’s one of the robots created to clean Earth (re: Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth class), and unfortunately, the only one left. WALL-E still does his job, he gathers up trash, loads it into his chest, compacts it, ejects it as a cube, and stacks it neatly, but all of this time activated has allowed him the ability to grow a personality beyond his primary function. He does his job, but he also saves little bits and bobs he finds in the trash heaps which pique his fancy, such as Zippo lighters, egg beaters, bubble wrap and whatever else he takes a shine to. One of WALL-E’s more special items is an old VHS copy of Hello, Dolly! which he watches everyday and it makes him yearn for real companionship like the stars of the film. Suddenly, one day WALL-E’s daily routine is interrupted by a ship from space which launches a sleek little probe robot designated EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator). EVE hovers around scanning anything and everything, but is quick to fire laser beams at whatever might surprise her, so WALL-E is simultaneously frightened and intrigued by her presence. WALL-E follows EVE at a distance night and day, and after she gets used to him around, he feels safe enough to approach and they share small pleasantries. WALL-E shows EVE his collection of odds and ends, including his coveted Hello, Dolly!, but EVE does not stray from her main objective for long and scans WALL-E’s collection. All of a sudden, EVE locates her objective, a small plant, and she encases it within her torso and shuts down. WALL-E is terrified of his new friend’s abrupt inert state and works hard to protect both her and her objective.
The Good: As usual when it comes to Pixar, the animation is phenomenal. I know the main goal of 3D computer animation is to make more realistic renderings, but on this movie I simply have to give props to the body language, the expressiveness, and sheer level of emotions which were readily apparent in relatively faceless robot characters who hardly speak. You can easily tell what mood WALL-E is in by a subtle head tilt. One of my favourite parts concerning robot expressiveness is with EVE after she is “accused” of malfunctioning. On her way to get repaired, the look in her eyes is clearly severe frustration. There were many other great visuals in this film, most notably the scene where WALL-E and EVE “dance” in the vacuum of space which was a thing of sheer beauty. I also enjoyed the sound of this film. Since many of the characters were robots, they had to use voice filters or whatever you call them on the actors so that they would sound synthetic, but there were also neat sound effects scattered throughout which were cute and pleasing. There were many genuinely funny gags and the usual Pixar in jokes which are always fun. BONUS: the animated short film which preceded the feature in the theater was absolute hilarious genius at work, reminiscent of the Tex Avery classic, Magical Maestro, and it had me in stitches.
The Bad: This movie is practically 90% dialogue free, and this may be a turn off for some people. There is no dialogue in the first twenty minutes or so which may cause children to squirm in their seats, and it is more than half way through the whole movie before the first human character shows up. This film is very heavy with the sci-fi elements as movies taking place 700 years in the future and star a little robot tend to be, but a couple of the pivotal plot points were severe sci-fi clichés in my book. There is definitely what you might call a “message” in this film concerning the environment and such and some people might think it is “too preachy” but I didn’t think so really.
Overall, WALL-E was greatly enjoyed by me. I am a fan of animation and visual storytelling and to me this one was a home run. Maybe not hit out of the park, but a home run nonetheless. It had a strong plot and characters. WALL-E and EVE’s relationship grew in a realistic way and it’s genuinely surprising how hard these two little robots can pull at your heart strings if you let them.
A-
