Just like a freshman stepping onto a university campus for the first time, Pixar’s newest movie “WALL-E” parallels a student’s endless amount of curiosity and adventure. Putting the audience in the eyes of a robot, Disney takes the viewer into a science-fiction animated scene ranging from a disaster-strewn earth to a tranquil vacation cruise in the middle of outer space.
Racking in a whopping $62.5 million in just its first weekend, “WALL-E” has become the first little piece of rusted and dilapidated metal to capture the hearts of people of all ages. Skeptical about the lack of dialogue (the robots communicate in a series of beeps and sounds of awe), writer-director Andrew Stanton subjects audiences to a tale they can relate to without speaking the same language.
It’s about time that directors came out with a robot movie geared toward a gentler audience, too. Having been inundated with action-packed, blood and guts splattered bad guys, and red-eyed robots, Hollywood has finally figured it out. Enough “I, Robot,” “Blade Runner” and “Terminator.” With Pixar’s new release, men, women and children can bond over a robot movie.
Using no more than a few hundred words of dialogue between title character WALL-E (a Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth robot) and Eve (an Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), producers captivate audiences into a tangled love story between characters from two different worlds.
Instantly smitten with Eve’s piercing blue eyes, WALL-E immediately finds himself abandoning his only companion, a cockroach, and subjects his full attention to the snowy white Eve. Adorning his new interest with trinkets he has found in Earth’s wasteland and dazzling Eve with musicals, WALL-E holds nothing back in trying to win over the girl robot’s heart.
However, when Eve finds a living specimen on earth and is summoned back to her home on the spaceship, WALL-E refuses to lose his new companion, and latches himself on to the ship’s ladder, propelling him into space. As the pair is reunited, a fierce battle breaks out, and the pair’s strength is tested on several accounts. Only after Eve restores WALL-E do the two robots settle down together.
With a mixture of old-fashioned show tunes and one-word electronic sound effects, “WALL-E” introduces audiences of all ages to the new age of romantic cartoons. Whoever thought two objects unable of communicating could not fall in love, well, they were seriously mistaken.
As WALL-E endlessly tries, and fails, to hold Eve’s hand, he faces the rejection, followed by numerous bouts of frustration and efforts of confidence to win over Eve’s heart. What this little boxed-in robot feels cannot be much different than that of a freshman male on his first day in the dorms.
It’s also hard not to cheer for the little guy who has become destined to turn trash into cubes. It has become human nature to cheer on the underdog.
While it may be over the head of its targeted four-year old audience, the film does provide an escape from the chaos of anyone old enough to comprehend the stress and reward of pursuing someone and eventually falling in love.
Maybe it’s our fascination with robots, or maybe it’s the instant connection we feel with WALL-E each time he is rejected from Eve, but whatever it is, this movie tugs at one’s heartstrings. Before you know it, you’re in love with the little robot who closes up and shudders at the sight of a dust storm.
“Finding Nemo,” “Toy Story” and “Monster’s Inc.” still rank high on my list of favorite animated films, but after seeing a helpless and quite adorable robot fall in love, “WALL-E” has become my new favorite animated film. Well, until Nemo can find a girlfriend.
