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WALL-E (USA, 2008)
The ninth feature from Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, WALL-E follows the studio’s most recent triumph RATATOUILE which won last year’s Oscar for Best Animated Feature and was a hit all over the globe. The combined worldwide box office gross for Pixar’s first eight releases is an astonishing $4.3 billion. Co-written and directed by Andrew Stanton, co-writer/director of Academy Award winning FINDING NEMO as well as writer of MONSTERS, INC, A BUG’S LIFE and TOY STORY 1 and 2, WALL-E has already recouped its $180 million budget and grossed just under $411 million worldwide at time of writing; more than half of that in the US since its release there on June 27, 2008. And there’s more to come from the international market, as it is still due to hit screens in the German language territories, (Sept. 25), Turkey, Italy, Japan, Greece and “Down Under”. Having been subjected to an array of dim-witted new comedy releases just lately, I was almost losing hope of seeing anything even vaguely intelligent. But once again Pixar has proved its brilliance and almost uncanny flair for keeping ahead of the curve. WALL-E is truly unique and likely to appeal to all age groups, races, creeds and colours across the globe. With sparkling wit and an important environmental message, yet hardly any dialogue to speak of - at least not for the first 40 minutes - WALL-E crosses all language barriers and cultural frontiers. In a distant future, namely 700 years hence, the world as we know it is a desolate wasteland of trash and debris, abandoned by mankind: A gigantic junkyard with refuse towering skyscraper-high and completely uninhabited except for WALL-E, (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class). The last robotic trash compactor, WALL-E is doing what he was built for and has been slogging away for centuries converting earth’s garbage into blocks of trash, all neatly stacked one atop the other. All alone on the planet, save for a friendly cockroach (Survival of the fittest!). The little robot with his big, binocular-like eyes attached to his long tubular neck (his gender is clear from the get-go) is curious about this long-departed race he is cleaning up after and has developed a few eccentricities over the ages. He collects knick-knacks that take his fancy: Rubik cubes, ping-pong bats and light bulbs, for instance, and takes them back to his lonely container which he has made into a home. At one point, he picks up a small blue velvet box. Opening it to find a glittering diamond ring, he immediately jettisons the ring and plays with the hinged box, adding it to his store of treasures: a wordless comment on the definition of values… And he loves the movies. Well, one especially, and plays an old, salvaged VHS of 1969’s HELLO DOLLY over and over again, fascinated by the music and the ability of the characters to relate to one another and show affection - by holding hands. Director Andrew Stanton and co-writer Jim Reardon felt this to be a symbolic way to give Wall-E “a romantic slant" and express love without actually being able to say so. HELLO DOLLY and its jolly tunes are prominently featured during the first half of the picture and act as an eloquent contrast to this dystopian vision of civilisation: the bleak garbage dump that once was planet Earth. But Wall-E’s life suddenly changes when he encounters EVE, (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), a sleek, oval, blue-eyed, I-Pod kind of probe robot or “probot,” if you like, whose mission is to find signs of life on Earth. A much more hi-tech model than Wall-E and armed with a devastating laser feature that obliterates anything within range, Wall-E is fascinated and fretfully follows her wherever she goes; terrified and exhilarated at one and the same time. He shows her his home and his collection of artefacts, among which is, by chance, the key to the planet’s future - a tiny, living plant. Eve zooms back into space to report her findings to the humans onboard the mothership, the luxury space-liner Axiom, while Wall-E follows her across the galaxy for the next part of his adventure, and the second part of the film.
Although completely without words, apart from Wall-E’s repeated uttering of “Eve”, this first segment is by far the most impressive and unique part of the film. But the world of sound and voice design of STAR WARS’ sound genius Ben Burtt, together with the magnificent score by Thomas Newman (eight-time Oscar nominee) more than compensates for any lack of dialogue. Burtt recorded many of the film’s sounds in a junkyard, while Niagara Falls provided the wind sounds for WALL-E 's world. The sound of insect clicks was the actual sound of locking handcuffs and the chirps of the cockroach were created by speeding up the sounds of a raccoon. The human element is introduced in the movie’s second half. On the luxury space-cruiser AXIOM, humankind is on perpetual holiday, helplessly overweight and hardly mobile. Dominated by a computer called Auto, (voiceover by Sigourney Weaver) and in thrall to the Buy N Large Corporation, master architects of consumer excess. EVE, with Wall-E in tow, returns to report her findings - the existence of vegetation on Earth means that it is safe to return home. And the struggle for dominance begins. The story now becomes somewhat predictable, but WALL-E still conveys a formidable and fearsome universal message, despite its G-rating. Visually stunning, thanks to production designer Ralph Eggleston (THE INCREDIBLES, FINDING NEMO, TOY STORY), the superb cinematography of Jeremy Lasky and some remarkable animation supervised by Alan Barillaro and Steve Hunter, WALL-E only has one serious opponent for Best Animated Feature at the forthcoming 2009 Academy Awards Ceremony. But as delightful as KUNG FU PANDA may be, for me it is no contest. WALL-E is a masterpiece; hugely entertaining and an important film, at one and the same time. I also recommend waiting until the end to hear the song: DOWN TO EARTH over the closing credits. Music by Thomas Newman with lyrics and performance by Peter Gabriel, it has already been nominated as the Best Original Score Written Directly for Film for the 2008 World Soundtrack Awards and an Oscar is very much on the cards. As always, Pixar presents a short before the main feature and this latest is a riot. PRESTO, directed and co-written by Doug Sweetland, is about a magician and his bunny and their violent dispute over a carrot. WALL-E (USA, 2008), German title: WALL-E: Der Letzte räumt die Erde auf), Genre: Animated sci-fi-adventure; Running time: 98 minutes; MPAA rated G; US release date: June 27, 2008; German release date: September 25, 2008; Director: Andrew Stanton; Writers: Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, original story by Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter; Voice Cast: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Fred Willard, Jeff Garlin, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver; Cinematorgapher: Jeremy Lasky; Composer: Thomas Newman; Title song: Thomas Newman (music), Peter Gabriel (lyrics); Production design: Ralph Eggleston; Editor: Stephen Schaffer |
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