WALL-E DVD

Milo ranks the latest creation from Pixar amongst the very best and enduring of Disney characters.

When Walt Disney decided that the star of Dumbo should be – pardon the pun – dumb, wiser heads told him no. How would audiences, especially children, respond to a character who never spoke? Walt’s gamble paid off, but with today’s generation reared on a diet of text messages and sound bites, it would be a bold move to try the same trick again.

Fortunately, the creative geniuses at Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios are no fans of conventional wisdom, and that’s what makes the eponymous star of Wall-E one of their most original and enduring creations to date.

In the not-too-distant future, the earth has become an uninhabitable wasteland roamed only by a dwindling army of robot janitors. One of the last of these is Wall-E, who spends his days diligently collecting and stacking cityscapes of rubbish, half-content in his loneliness, with only a solitary cockroach for company.

Hooked on classic musicals (he plays clips from Hello Dolly on a battered iPod), Wall-E dreams of romance until, one day, a potential companion falls from the sky in the form of a mysterious interplanetary probe, Eva. If Wall-E is a battered Morris, Eva is a fresh-out-of-the-showroom Prius, and the mismatched romance between the star-struck robot and the too-perfect-to-be-true object of his affection is never less than totally affecting.

The first full third of the film is conducted wordlessly, and it’s a tour de force of film-making in its purest form. Wall-E is a silent film star in the classic mould, with the comic timing of a Chaplin or a Keaton, and whether lonesome, lovesick or lost in space, Pixar’s animated creation exudes personality and pathos.

Directed by Andrew Stanton, who helmed the delightful Finding Nemo, Wall-E is pitched slightly younger than The Incredibles and Ratatouille, but has a similar timeless charm. Fans of Wallace and Gromit may see in Wall-E something of the robotic refrigerator from A Grand Day Out, and in spite of Pixar’s remarkable technical abilities, the film displays a similar hand-crafted attention to detail. One of the best reviewed films of the year, Wall-E is a treat for movie-lovers young and old.

Milo Wakelin on 1st November 2008
Author of 103 reviews