WALL-E (Pixar/Disney)
By Raymond Mai
I'll honestly say that I walked into WALL-E (opened June 27 throughout San Diego) not knowing what to expect. I looked at the trailer and I read a little about the movie, but not even that provided much information. So I sat in my seat at the preview only knowing that this movie was really hyped up. But after 103 minutes, I applauded along with the rest of the audience.
Pixar's WALL-E starts off in a New York-like city on a deserted earth. You figure out soon enough that a company called Buy 'n Large has developed WALL-E machines to clean up the earth while all the humans have flown off in a giant spaceship called the Axiom to escape the mess. Sadly, you'll also figure out that there is only one functional WALL-E (voiced by Ben Burtt) and he goes through a daily routine of collecting unique items and stacking cubes of trash until they become, well, a skyscraper. One day, a spaceship enters the trash filled atmosphere of earth and lands not far from the city. A robot comes out of the machine by the name of EVE (Elissa Knight), though Wall-E pronounces it EVA. A series of events happen and EVE fires her cannon at WALL-E while he tries to get closer to her. This stubborn robot never gives up and eventually he makes friends with EVE. This leads to WALL-E showing her a plant he has found. Because it's her directive to find plant life, she stores the plant and then shuts down. WALL-E goes out of his way to protect EVE yet she doesn't come out of this state. Soon the same spaceship from earlier comes to pick her up and WALL-E grabs hold of the spaceship and follows her back to the Axiom. There, you find out what has happened to the people of earth 700 years later and how their body mass has increased dramatically. The captain (Jeff Garlin) is soon faced with the decision to stay with the original plan of coming back to earth or follow the override orders and stay on the spaceship. He is soon attacked by AUTO (A Mac Speech Recognition Voice) and it's up to WALL-E, EVE, the captain, and the people of earth to get back to earth.
While WALL-E was on earth, I literally whispered to my brother, "The graphics are pretty nice." Though it kind of let up when you are in the spaceship sequence, the animation was done well. As you might have realized from my past reviews, I'm a sucker for character development. I like to see the personalities of all the characters develop. This movie does exactly that and I even fell for how WALL-E was so innocent and lovestruck yet he gets himself caught up in an adventure. The love story was a great addition to the movie. It stuck in my mind -- I wondered if WALL-E would ever get EVE as they tried to save the people of earth. I also liked seeing EVE express no interest in WALL-E, but as he goes out of his way to be with EVE she starts to fall for him as well. I also had a lot of good laughs in the movie. To top it off, this movie had a good message to send to the people of earth. Basically, it says, "If you keep up screwing with the earth by dumping trash everywhere, the earth will turn on you and become uninhabitable." Along with that, "you will live on a spaceship for the rest of your life, gain 300 pounds, and your bones will start to shrink." I have no problem with this movie though some people might not like the fact that there is not much dialogue. Out of all the movies I've seen this year, WALL-E (rated G for all audiences) is definitely my favorite one. This very entertaining movie deserves a 5 out of 5 stars from me.
Raymond Mai is a soon to be sophomore at Mount Miguel High School where he's on the football and baseball team. When he is not studying or playing a sport, he loves to have fun, whether it's watching movies or just kicking it behind the TV with his Nintendo Wii. He enjoys the opportunity to voice his opinions about movies.
Max
July 01, 2008 at 09:06 AM
Wall-E is great. I agree wholeheartedly with your review.
For a movie about a lonely robot, it sure has a lot of heart.
Also, the filmmaker is very good. In the first 10 minutes or so while we are watching Wall-E worked and then going home along the deserted city to his dwelling, we were drawn into the world and was able to tell what happened to Earth. All this was done skillfully and amazingly to get us into the world of the story.
It's simply amazing. What a great movie.
Levi Tormis from Lemon Grove
September 25, 2008 at 07:54 PM
I have never seen this movie but after reading the review on it, it gives me more motivation to get up and rent the movie to watch it. Since the graphics are so good and it has a good story line(according to Raymond) there is no doubt in my mind that it is a great movie.
David Gonzalez from Mt. Miguel
September 25, 2008 at 08:12 PM
I agree with you one hundred percent man. This movie had it all laughs,
romance, a serious message, and just the perfect family move. Weather you're 5 or 50. You did a great job on a great film.
Aric Montoya from Mount Miguel High School
September 25, 2008 at 08:16 PM
well i havent actually seen this movie but by this review it makes me want to. i like how he describes the movie in all ways. the character wall e is very lonely and has to clean up earth by himself. i think its pretty cool how they animated it. i recommend this movie to little kids
