Wall-E Review

Never have I left a film so long between watching and reviewing it than with Wall-E. There is a reason for this. For while I watched Wall-E over 3 weeks ago I couldn't bring myself to tell the world just how much I loved it. Its not that I'm worried for my masculinity, everyone who knows me can vouch for my unmanly film tastes, I'm just worried that my review won't be able to do justice to what is essentially a 24carat, 5-star, cast-iron classic piece of cinema.

Wall-E is a cleaning robot whose developed something of a personality in the years that he's be left on Earth. As all signs of life (bar cockroaches) and all appliances have faded into obsolescence Wall-E plods on. Until EVE comes along, a hyper tech searcher robot, looking for signs of life on this now dead planet. In true classic cinema style Wall-E falls for EVE and thats when I start to blub like a little child. When EVE's misson is completed she leaves causing Wall-E to search the galaxy for his new love.

I've already failed in this review because that doesn't sum up well enough how great the simplicity of the plot is. As a one paragraph pitch I've distilled true greatness into something sci-fi and tawdry and mawkish and Wall-E is none of these things. Instead its innovative, sumptuous to look at, balls out brave in being silent for nigh on 45 minutes and hella funny. Its fair to say the scenes without Wall-E miss him like I miss my bed at 3 in the afternoon but even in these 'bad points' its still witty and invloving. They're only 'bad' in contrast to how much Wall-E and EVE light up the screen when they are together.

But the true reason why I love Wall-E is that its so cute. Its so damn cute. Its cuter than Natalie Portman wearing mittens, working in a button shop, surrounded by puppies and kittens. Its that damn cute. My cynical nature will end up putting something else above it by the end of the year, I'll argue that something else was more of a 'me' type film but I'd be a fool to do so because not only is it the best film of 2008 so far (and I can say that cos I've seen them all) but its also one of the best films ever made. A truly universal film that sums up the best thing about cinema. The stomach churning, heart leaping, laugh and cry power of stories. Thank you Pixar. Thank you so very, very much.