Movies Daily by Zach Cannon

Pixar, we need to talk. Look, I’m 22, a month from 23, and I just graduated from college. I’m going into the job force, and I’m supposed to be an adult. I need to grow up, stop being a kid, get into the real world. That sort of thing.

And then you come along, make a movie like WALL-E, and totally complicate things for me. I’m not saying it’s all your fault, I mean, I was stoked to catch your newest film at the earliest opportunity. The Incredibles ranks as one of my favorite films ever, Finding Nemo and Toy Story I find it impossible not to love, and, even though I was a little worried about you when you released Cars and Ratatouille — two films I enjoyed but didn’t adore — I still had faith that you could pull it together and release another classic.

Not only did you do that, you completely captured my imagination. You brought out the little kid in me, just like you do almost every summer. WALL-E did it differently though. Your second-in-command Andrew Stanton did something that Pixar Grand Poobah John Lasseter and resident genius Brad Bird never tried: he didn’t use any faces.

I mean, there are a few, with the goofy humans that float around WALL-E, and they’re swell and all, but for the most part, the main characters are just emotionless robots. No smiles, no dimples, a few have eye-like things, but mostly, just blank equivalents of R2-D2 and an iPod Shuffle. On top of that, Stanton’s main characters hardly talk to each other outside of a few computerized beeps. You let him do this, Pixar, and somehow he managed to create one of the most heartfelt, daring and beautiful family films in recent years.

The beauty isn’t just in the love story; though wonderfully fun, that part is kind of cliché. It is, after all, just a boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back story that happens to be wrapped up in a grander tale of human survival. The action set pieces are stunning and exciting, if not a little bit predictable, and they’ll keep the younger tykes in the audiences giggling, while their parents and older siblings are entertained too.

Beyond the story, there is a genius in WALL-E that goes almost unnoticed thanks to the brain’s ability to recognize interpret body language and project our own emotions onto blank objects. That trick comes in handy when WALL-E and EVE go to outer space to the Axiom, the ship upon which the remainder of the human race leaves. There, WALL-E meets dozens of robots and one in particular I can’t get out of my mind. It’s a dysfunctional robot with an anger problem. It constantly smashing the other ‘bots around him and when the time comes for this Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot to get WALL-E past some police-type robots it has a field day. By the time its job is done, it’s bobbing up and down, its mechanical arms and bulbous “hands” draped on its sides, it’s round, blank face has nothing on it, no grimace or expression. It remarkably reminds me exactly of a tired boxer recuperating after a tough fight.

Of course, this is just a short scene of WALL-E, a few seconds of a two-hour masterpiece, but it illustrates how well Stanton uses his medium as a canvas and paints it with emotions and ideas. Even on Earth, the air is dusty and dirty, the camera floating and shaky, the cinematography both brilliant and dazzling to the point where you can’t help but get sucked into the world not just because it feels real, it almost looks real.

Now, Pixar, I know, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. WALL-E isn’t all just good looks; it’s got a lot of heart. That blend is difficult to come by, but you and your team always do it so well. You manage to capture audiences’ eyes, their intellects, their hearts and their imagination. If you keep that up, I don’t think any of us are going to grow up any time soon.

Grade: A

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