396 replies to this topic

[Sam]

This shot from the trailer is awesome.

And I'm curious to see how they handle a real, honest-to-god, live action human being in the film.

[velocity]

Could possibly be the greatest movie ever made. When Wall-E uses the fire extinguisher in the preview, I could literally feel my heart being stolen.

[The Luscious Phil]

I want to point out that I thought Kung-Fu Panda was easily the best Dreamworks picture to date. The animation was great, it had zero pop-culture references, with a more fleshed out story and more character growth it could have been a stellar piece of work.

[Kennan]

97 at Rotten Tomatoes with a 90 at Metacritic. Having looked at a few reviews, though, it seems a common criticism that it's almost two movies.

[Sam]

97 at Rotten Tomatoes with a 90 at Metacritic.

Having looked at a few reviews, though, it seems a common criticism that it's almost two movies.

That intrigues me most. The fact that the trailers are limited entirely to the first 25 minutes of the film is incredibly refreshing. I'm pretty frustrated with the whole "once you've seen the trailer you've seen the whole damn film" phenomenon.

AICN's spoiler free review. Calling it a masterpiece of family filmaking, but also a masterpiece of adult science fiction. Before the embargo was lifted, Knowles and Beaks made allusions to seminal works of science fiction like 2001 and Blade Runner. Anyway, here's the review:

Quint thinks WALL-E is a masterpiece!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with some thoughts on Pixar’s latest work of genius: WALL-E.

From the very first trailer I had a gut feeling this was going to be something special, even for Pixar. By the time I saw the finished film, I had seen the first act three times. I was blessed with a visit to Pixar when I was in San Francisco for WonderCon where they showed us the complete and finished first 25 minutes. Between that, the footage from Comic-Con, the footage shown at BNAT I figured I’d seen a good amount of the movie.

And that’s fine. Each time I was awed by what I saw, by the depressing yet beautiful future world Pixar created, by the soul reflected in the body language and eyes of WALL-E and by the incredibly filmic style Andrew Stanton insisted upon.

I got to experience the wonder, so it wasn’t all that big of a deal that I’d seen most of it by the time I saw the whole kit and kaboodle.

Well, that’s where I was wrong. The majority of the trailers have only shown you the very beginning of the story. Thank God there were still surprises and wonder left. The heart of the story was laid out in the beginning… Wall-E’s the only robot left working on an Earth that became so overrun with refuse that it quickly became uninhabitable.

The humans left on a gigantic luxury cruise looking space ship, supposedly for 5 years as a team of robots were to collect and compact all the trash. But the humans stayed away and the robots stopped working until only one remained.

Somehow over the hundreds of years of working alone this lone robot developed a unique personality, a human quality… a soul.

But that’s a catch-22. He has individuality, but no one to share his uniqueness with. He’s lonely.

One day EVE shows up on a search mission. If Wall-E is an Apple IIe, then EVE is an iMac. Sleek, sexy, futuristic. Wall-E’s in love and after a… difficult… and brief courtship EVE is collected and Wall-E begins his adventure.

I knew going in Wall-E was going to be a magnificent character, but what I didn’t expect was the glut of absolutely great side characters we meet when we get back to the Axiom, the luxury ship holding all of humanity.

Through a great series of events I won’t spoil here, Wall-E ends up essentially being put in a special education section… He’s essentially put in with the misfit toys, malfunctioning robots. But are they really malfunctioning or are they just as individual as Wall-E is himself?

There’s one robot that whores Wall-E up, powdering his face with make-up the second he’s pushed in the room, there’s one that’s bugnuts crazy and pounds the hell out of anything in close proximity. I loved these guys.

The humans of the future are… well, imagine if Mike Judge made a sequel to IDIOCRACY (that Fox might actually put some money into and release… in this hypothetical, of course) set in space. Everybody’s fat, dependent on technology and so caught up in their world that there is no individuality anymore.

To say this is a masterpiece of family filmmaking is no surprise. It is Pixar, afterall. To say it’s a masterpiece of Science Fiction storytelling is a bigger surprise. The future told here is a dark one, the implications of HAL-9000-like twisted programming machinery and an almost totalitarian robot regime on the space ship are all much darker than I imagined we’d see in a family film.

But it’s a testament to Wall-E as a personality that he keeps the movie from being depressing. His neverending kindness, optimism and seemingly unlimited cuteness infects not just the audience, but all the characters he interacts with.

There’s also a bit of a Christ parallel thrown in for good measure.

That’s all in the subtext. On the surface it’s a goofy cute robot overcoming some obstacles and making everybody smile. What’s great about this is that kids will love it now and when they revisit it in 10 years time they’ll see it in a whole new light. That also means it’s not a chore for the adults taking the kids.

I’ve loved almost all the Pixar movies. CARS I think is my least favorite, but adversely it’s also the most beautiful looking Pixar film… up until now. The photography in this film is beyond beautiful.

WALL-E is a giant step forward for Pixar… when I thought there wasn’t much further they could go. It took balls to have a lead character who doesn’t speak traditionally and it pays off. Look at Luxo. Pixar knows how to use body language to tell a story and then they had the brilliant idea to hire Ben Burtt as Wall-E’s voice and bam… the have an instant icon.

Time will tell if WALL-E can topple THE INCREDIBLES as my favorite Pixar film, but as it stands right now it’s a close second.

[MattDrufke]

someone told me the first half hour or so is void of dialogue

that's pretty awesome but also pretty risky for a kids movie

Though not the same thing, one of my favorite Disney movies is where the main character has no lines at all:






But yeah, taking the wife and kid to see this in a little over an hour (thank goodness I took an extra day off after my vacation). I will report back.

[Wolfgang]

Dean's List A+ Sold.

[crease]

Joe Morgenstern, the WSJ's film crit, called Wall-E a 'masterpiece' in his review today. He was pretty much rapturous throughout his unusually long summary of the film. I think we'll be taking the kids this weekend.

[marilyn]

Definitely will be my best movie of the year.

[MattDrufke]

All right kids, just got back from this (and grocery shopping, in the interest of full disclosure): The first half of this movie ranks right up there with any movie. Not just any Pixar movie, any fucking movie you can name. It's fantastic and funny and heartwarming and visually mesmerizing. For about 50 minutes, this movie just owns your soul. The second half of the movie kind of loses its' way just a little, but there are enough beautiful and touching moments in the movie to keep in going. For a 97-minute movie, it felt like it was done in about 30. A wonderful four-star, almost perfect movie. Also, the short at the beginning is one of the best I've ever seen Pixar put out. SEE. THIS. MOVIE.

[Andyroo]

Definitely seeing this tonight. I haven't loved a Pixar film since The Incredibles, but I think this has a huge likelihood of rocking my face.

[BRANDON BOYD FROM INCUBUS]

didn't expect to see this so soon, but after a solid week of sound opinions/hipinion/aintitcool/metacritic/INTERNET hype, i am going to see it in 30 minutes i am such a suggestible bum

[zolacolby]

The character of Wall-E reminds me of
Huey, Dewey and Louie in Silent Running.

They brought a tear to my eye...

[coldcomfort]

I loved this movie....not one I would normally go to, but got out of work early today - 600 North is 2 blocks away and show time was in ten minutes. Really glad I went. I didn't like the short at the beginning though. My mind started wandering half way thru it. But Wall-e was great. I welled up a couple of times and had to tell myself "dont you fucking dare tear up at a G rated movie!"

[elcorazon]

I loved this movie....not one I would normally go to, but got out of work early today - 600 North is 2 blocks away and show time was in ten minutes. Really glad I went. I didn't like the short at the beginning though. My mind started wandering half way thru it. But Wall-e was great. I welled up a couple of times and had to tell myself "dont you fucking dare tear up at a G rated movie!"

ha. as if the level of emotionalism in the film is related to the amount of violence, sex or foul language.

[Damo Suzuki]

Good movie.

[coldcomfort]

I loved this movie....not one I would normally go to, but got out of work early today - 600 North is 2 blocks away and show time was in ten minutes. Really glad I went. I didn't like the short at the beginning though. My mind started wandering half way thru it. But Wall-e was great. I welled up a couple of times and had to tell myself "dont you fucking dare tear up at a G rated movie!"

ha. as if the level of emotionalism in the film is related to the amount of violence, sex or foul language.

Haven't seen an animated film in ages - it stuck me as sort of a silly thing to do, well up at one. Don't be such a dick.

[Ogawa]

Watch The Iron Giant and see if you aren't bawling your little eyes out by the end.

[Finn McCool]

The character of Wall-E reminds me of
Huey, Dewey and Louie in Silent Running.

They brought a tear to my eye...

Hugely fond of that movie...and those three robots.

Wall-E will make me weep, I'm sure. I wore an orange shirt the day after I saw Finding Nemo because I wanted to be a clownfish.

[coldcomfort]

Watch The Iron Giant and see if you aren't bawling your little eyes out by the end.

Cool. It's goint on the rental list.....