I really needed to see the new Pixar film WALL*E because the first two people I know who saw it really disliked it. Given its otherwise high critical praise, this was a real motivator. I also decided to see if I could, for the first time, have my daughter watch a full-length movie; we’ve failed with Enchanted, Stuart Little and a couple others.
So, for that first 20 minutes, I was a bit distracted. I was taken in by the charms of the cleaning and collecting robot but would the child be like-minded? Actually, she was OK until EVE came and started blasting all over the place. And when she started blowing things up in the vicinity of our hero, that was the end of that. For her.
For me, it’s when it really started getting interesting. Sure it has those somewhat heavy-handed apocalyptic imagery. Ultimately, though it was a story of heroism, changing from a state of inertia to a state of action. And of course, it was a love story.
In this economic climate, the fact that we ARE producing so much garbage, and that we should think about consuming and producing less of it, is a timely lesson that I got without feeling as though I’d been ho=it over the head with it.
I “get” the less than enthusiastic early reviewers, though. Perhaps too intense for some younger kids, though other kids really like it. On the other hand, animation is not just for kids, and perhaps never was.
ROG
One thought on “VIDEO REVIEW: WALL*E”