Wall-E Mini-review

Wall-E is probably a shoe-in for the best animated film Oscar, but it's gotten such rave reviews that the question is -- can it nab a Best Picture nomination?

My kids were so desperate to see Wall-E that we searched for theaters in Anchorage (didn't find one) and finally found a theater in Vancouver where we could see it. We had waited until the middle son got home from camp so we all could see it together, and I'm glad we did.

My seven year old says it's his favorite film of the whole year. It's both sweet and sophisticated, leading even political blogs (like Andrew Sullivan) to comment on its themes of over-consumption and environmentalism. But what a love story!

I loved the early sequence when we see Wall-E find all sorts of interesting things in his daily work, like a Rubik's cube and a spork, which puzzles him. All the Apple references cracked me up -- doesn't Eva the female robot just look like she was designed by Apple? And the boot up sound for the robot is the Apple boot up sound. The smartest move Pixar made was to hire Ben Burtt, the Oscar winning sound designer who created the sounds of R2-D2, the Star Wars lightsaber hum, and Indiana Jones' whip crack. Ben Burtt, himself, is the voice of Wall-E:

'"I had just finished my 29-year, 10-month tour of duty with 'Star Wars,' and I thought, Well, at least I don't have to do any more robots.' But when Pixar called, I could see this was something more like a Frank Capra romance with Buster Keaton thrown in. And you had the challenge of not only creating the sound for this fantasy world, but the even bigger task of creating principal characters built out of sound."

I was amused to note who Ben Burtt got to voice the Axiom spaceship computer -- none other that sci-fi royalty Sigourney Weaver of Alien! Fred Willard as the president of Big & Large was also a brilliant casting choice in the films only live action sequences. (I wondered to my husband if the choice of B&L for the logo was a reference to Bird and Lasseter, the two geniuses at Pixar.)

Yes, it's a masterpiece. It's simply an amazing piece of film-making, much less fantastic animation. Pixar sets the standard for excellence, and it's the heart in their characters that makes the films truly special. Four stars.