Wall-E: a movie review

At long last, Wall-E has finally arrived on Philippine shores. I have been eagerly waiting for this film because it received rave reviews and it reminds me so much of Short Circuit's Johnny 5. (By the way, if you know where to get the Short Circuit film locally, let me know! Not the part 2 please, and not the VHS version. Thanks!) But - I soon learn - it is so different from that 80s movie and the critics hit the nail right on the head when they praised it for entertainment value.

Wall-E (an acronym for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) is a robot model tasked to clean up the over-polluted Earth while the humans left for outer space in a pleasure cruise, expecting that the clean-up will be accomplished within their lifetime. Its function is primarily that of a trash compactor.

Wall-E is a product of the huge business conglomerate Buy n Large, which has basically taken control of almost all aspects of commerce on Earth. Since it was thus also responsible for the humongous trash generated by its end-user products, BnL resolved to clean up Earth and give comfort to the displaced humans as well by making them as comfortable as possible. Hence the pleasure cruise.

It's difficult to spill out spoilers for this movie but the trailer does show a robot that's generations ahead of Wall-E visiting Earth on an exploration mission. Suffice to say that the conical-shaped, levitating robot is Eve which becomes the love interest of Wall-E (and so we conclude that Wall-E has developed a male persona).

Like the other outputs of Pixar, Wall-E is a purely computer-generated animation. But what's truly outstanding with this movie is that it does not try to outdo itself, but rather it tells the story in the simplest way possible. It's about the most basic of human emotions - the feeling of belonging and be loved - in the context of modern technology. How Wall-E and Eve connects in the movie is truly engaging.

The movie starts out with a sense of self-discovery, then opens to a bigger world. It's excitement, suspense, action, drama, love, and then happiness. Truly a unique adventure.

It likewise gives us a glimpse of what can happen to our future. We have a trash problem in our hands right now, and it takes into consideration the effects of zero gravity. But what we will not have is a Wall-E to help dig us out of our mountainloads of trash. It was an environmental message that I hope you, as a viewer, will take to heart as well.

Watch the movie with friends! You will surely love it.