Movie Review: WALL-E
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Not only did we see Avenue Q, I also took my girlfriend to see the much-anticipated WALL-E, Pixar's latest film. We'd been looking forward to this for months, and were super-excited to see it.
Let me tell you, Pixar again didn't disappoint. For a movie with incredibly little dialogue, much is conveyed. For a movie that's "animated" and "for kids", it's deeper yet more enjoyable than almost any other movie out there right now. And for a movie about a robot, it's an amazingly human story.
The thing is, I'm not sure this is a children's movie. With little dialogue, the humor (and message) are all masterfully conveyed through expression and intonation of what few lines there are; this might be lost on younger children. The message is also somewhat bleak; an uninhabitable, polluted Earth left to rot, a civilization barely able to take care of itself and run by corporations, robots that do all the thinking for people - cause for thought in adults, but will children appreciate it? I'm not sure. (Plus, not many people under my age seem to have seen the movie 2001, so they'll be missing a whole bunch of laughs.)
The lowest point of the WALL-E experience was the previews shown before the film. As a Disney film, all the previews were for other Disney "movies", and I use that term in the technical sense. There was nothing in there that spoke to me or even showed the least bit of creativity. Everything else just looked like the standard recycled Disney materiel and franchise exploitation that's been oozing out of Disney for ages.
Fortunately, the previews were followed by another of Pixar's gems: the short film Presto. In stark contrast to the preview for Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Presto actually had the audience engaged and laughing. Presto was refreshingly well-paced, and, interestingly enough - like WALL-E - lacked, instead thrilling us through facial expressions and physical humor.
Final word on WALL-E? One of Pixar's more subtle masterpieces, and well worth the price of admission.
Let me tell you, Pixar again didn't disappoint. For a movie with incredibly little dialogue, much is conveyed. For a movie that's "animated" and "for kids", it's deeper yet more enjoyable than almost any other movie out there right now. And for a movie about a robot, it's an amazingly human story.
The thing is, I'm not sure this is a children's movie. With little dialogue, the humor (and message) are all masterfully conveyed through expression and intonation of what few lines there are; this might be lost on younger children. The message is also somewhat bleak; an uninhabitable, polluted Earth left to rot, a civilization barely able to take care of itself and run by corporations, robots that do all the thinking for people - cause for thought in adults, but will children appreciate it? I'm not sure. (Plus, not many people under my age seem to have seen the movie 2001, so they'll be missing a whole bunch of laughs.)
The lowest point of the WALL-E experience was the previews shown before the film. As a Disney film, all the previews were for other Disney "movies", and I use that term in the technical sense. There was nothing in there that spoke to me or even showed the least bit of creativity. Everything else just looked like the standard recycled Disney materiel and franchise exploitation that's been oozing out of Disney for ages.
Fortunately, the previews were followed by another of Pixar's gems: the short film Presto. In stark contrast to the preview for Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Presto actually had the audience engaged and laughing. Presto was refreshingly well-paced, and, interestingly enough - like WALL-E - lacked, instead thrilling us through facial expressions and physical humor.
Final word on WALL-E? One of Pixar's more subtle masterpieces, and well worth the price of admission.
posted by Burton at 9:38 PM
1 Comments:
my kids LOVED WALL-E. We've seen it twice now.
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