Even though I’ve wanted to discuss this film for many weeks, I’ve put it off due to a combination of life stresses and not knowing what to say. Compounding that was the fact that it’d been over half-a-decade since I’d last seen it, so my thoughts weren’t fresh. But I saw it again anyway. Have my thoughts changed? Yes and no.
(FYI, for those who’ve yet to see WALL-E, there’ll be spoilers. You’ve been warned.)
What works?
WALL-E has many strengths, key amongst them being its storytelling. The film, or the parts focusing on WALL-E and EVE, tells a conventional story, a Hollywood romance, in an incredibly-unconventional manner. As sentient robots with minimal verbal skills, the love story between the leads is largely shown through visuals and body language. This is really hard to do in film, so any attempts at tackling it well should be applauded. This movie, to its credit, does that.
I like WALL-E and EVE. Despite clearly being coded male and female, the two aren’t your conventional masculine and feminine ideal. WALL-E, the male, is timid, shy and incredibly naïve, having spent most of his existence alone on a decayed and garbage-festered Earth. EVE, the female, is aggressive, quick-tempered and warrior-like, having been programmed to be the perfect soldier. Despite this, the two present facets of their traditional roles, and by the time the movie has ended, WALL-E has transformed into a confident male and EVE a compassionate female.
Speaking of which, I like the romance between WALL-E and EVE. It’s super-conventional, more on that later, but it’s silly and goofy in a cute way. Given how clumsy and insecure WALL-E is, as well as how aggressive and competent EVE is, it makes sense that WALL-E would initially be intimidated by EVE. Even when it starts blossoming in the second-act, it never feels unnatural. By the time the third-act climax rolls around, and WALL-E is badly wounded trying to save humanity, the heartbreak feels earned.
I also like a lot of the side-characters. Most of the humans are pretty disposable, more on that later too, but the robots are fun: there’s the germophobic janitor who keeps getting fed up with WALL-E’s messiness, the police officer who breaks protocol because he’s a jerk, the ship’s autopilot, or AUTO, being modelled off of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey and the quirky, misfit’s in The AXIOM’s equivalent of a looney-bin. I also like the little bug that WALL-E befriends, while Captain B. McCrea is a lot of fun as a bumbling-yet-well-meaning man who’s become overcomplacent with the lap of luxury. And John and Mary are the film’s most-underrated human couple, taking on the most-personality of all of The AXIOM’s passengers. Essentially, the characters that matter the most are well-represented.
I also like the sound design. So much of it can be attested to Ben Burt, who helped bring the Star Wars movies to life, reprising his role as sound director. Everything, from WALL-E’s boot-up noise being reminiscent of an Apple computer, to AUTO’s voice sounding synthetic, to even the contrast between WALL-E’s primitiveness and EVE’s polish, adds to the experience. Even the voice acting is great, with Sigourney Weaver lending her voice to the announcer aboard The AXIOM. And yes, Ben Burt voices WALL-E perfectly, especially alongside Elissa Knight as EVE.
I love the musical selection, both its score and soundtrack choices. It’s Thomas Newman of Finding Nemo composing here, and while not quite as memorable, there are definitely stand-outs, like Define Dancing, that play during WALL-E’s best moments. The movie also references Hello Dolly’s musical cues at several points as a running motif, enhancing the film’s running theme of isolation. And, in a direct reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey, the movie uses Also sprach Zarathustra in a tense moment where Captain McCrea faces off against AUTO. It’s as funny as it is awesome.
Thematically, the movie has three major threads that tie it together, an ambitious undertaking. I’m not fond of how they’re tied together, and I’ll cover that shortly, but it’s interesting to see what it has on its mind. I like the film’s romantic thread, as that’s where it excels the most. I like the movie’s attempt at satirizing consumerism aboard The AXIOM, showing how lazy and environmentally-neglectful capitalism is. And I like the suspense thriller aspect with AUTO’s attempt at domination. They’re all clever threads that warrant their own movies.
Okay, time for to switch gears!
What DOESN’T work?
Enough to bug me.
Let’s get the biggest elephant in the room out of the way: WALL-E’s an incredibly-unsubtle critique on neglect of the environment under capitalism. It’s a neat angle on environmentalism that so many films get wrong, true, and it makes sense that the two would go hand-in-hand, but I can’t help finding this a tad hypocritical. Pixar’s no Disney, but this cheap jab at an institution it benefits from makes the message feel insincere. If it were Disney proper, I wouldn’t mind as much, as they poke fun at themselves constantly. But I expect more from Pixar, and I feel this was the wrong subject for them to approach.
I also realize that this is a tough point to call out. As Leon Thomas once mentioned in his review, artists aren’t corporate entities, so whether or not the intended message is manipulated for mass profit isn’t up to them. What I do take issue with, however, is claiming that the film wasn’t intended as a pro-environmentalism piece. Because if intent mattered as much as execution, then it’d be easier to excuse Rick Deckard’s rape of Rachel in Blade Runner as “aggressive love”. Execution overrides intent.
I wouldn’t be as turned off if it weren’t for another pro-environmentalism movie released the following year, Avatar, being bashed for the same reason WALL-E’s given a pass. Avatar isn’t a perfect film by any means: it’s a ham-fisted, white saviour movie on top of a pro-environmentalism piece, and not even the best of either. But I don’t feel like the “save the trees” message in Avatar is hiding behind another, much better story. I do with WALL-E.
Switching gears, the relationship between WALL-E and EVE is unconventionally-conventional. It follows unusual characters, but plays like a cliché love story: boy meets girl. Girl is initially uninterested in boy, yet is won over by goofy hijinks. Insert slow trust between boy and girl. Insert misunderstanding. Insert reconciliation of misunderstanding. Insert tragic accident that shakes up relationship, leading to “will he, or won’t he?” moment. Insert sappy conclusion where boy and girl reunite and express their feelings.
I don’t mind this type of storytelling, especially in a romance, but don’t pretend it isn’t rote and predictable.
Completing the story complaints, the three plot threads, environment, romance and dark thriller, don’t mesh well. They’re fine solo, and they’d make excellent movies in their own right, but combined they’re constantly in-conflict with one-another. A scene that should feel romantic, like WALL-E and EVE flying in space, is undercut by the environmentalist undertones of Captain McCrea re-educating himself on Earth’s lost terms. It never doesn’t feel jarring, and that’s a problem.
By the way, remember how I mentioned that the CGI looks amazing even now? Well, I lied a little. There’s one exception involving the humans in the promo ads for The AXIOM. They look off. As in, Uncanny Valley levels of off. It wouldn’t be as distracting had the rest of the human models in-film followed suit, but because they don’t, it’s disturbing. I know the film wants them to mesh with BnL’s shady, live-action CEO, to show how far humans have fallen, but that doesn’t make it any less jarring.
Speaking of jarring, the Hello Dolly musical numbers can feel that way too initially. The movie starts with an opening set to one of that film’s show-stoppers that contrasts the barren wasteland of future Earth, and it works…but then it’s cut off and we’re introduced to WALL-E. It took me several viewings to figure out where the film was going with this, and while I get it now, think it’s brilliant and feel as though it meshes perfectly with the movie, to the uninitiated it can be confusing.
There are other, minor details that also don’t add up. There’s a recurring joke about “pizza plants” that’s more cringe-worthy than funny. The movie’s pro-environmentalist message is openly spelled-out by Captain McCrea halfway through the film. And the end song in the credits, though catchy, is as subtle as a boot to the face. These are little annoyances, but when juxtaposed with the bigger annoyances, they add up.
The verdict?
It confuses me when people blanket praise WALL-E for its storytelling, yet point out that everything beyond the Married Life montage in Up falls flat. Ignoring that film’s a subjective medium, Up’s scrapbook montage in the film’s third-act hits me much harder than the Married Life montage. And for all of its ambitious storytelling, WALL-E’s a far messier movie. Up might be a simple adventure story, but it’s also a clever coming-of-age tale for Carl Fredrickson. It might be silly, but at least that silliness suits its premise. Even the message about family being what you make it to be feels more fleshed-out and consistent in Up than WALL-E’s three storylines.
That having been said, I don’t think it’s a total waste of time. I remember one of my old ScrewAttack buddies openly stating that WALL-E would’ve been better as a short film, to which I vehemently disagree. I think WALL-E’s a fine movie, but it’s not a great one. It would’ve been great, however, had it tightened itself up. But it’s too late to rewind time.
Either way, I hold no ill-will against those who think that it’s one of Pixar’s best. It’s well-made, it’s ambitious, and at least one-third of the film, or WALL-E and EVE’s romance, is worthy of full marks. I simply can’t put it on the pedestal that everyone else has for 10 years.
But then again, feel free to disagree with me. I won’t stop you.
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