There's a reason Kid's movies regularly rake in hundreds of millions of dollars, while more "sophisticated" adult fare often falls flat on it's high-falutin' face. It's in their simplicity, and this is illustrated by Wall-E, one of the best computer animated films I have ever seen.
The story is superbly original, and yet devoid of all that cluttering complexity. Wall-E is the last of a production line of trash-compacting robots, left behind on a polluted, abandoned earth to spend eternity crushing our waste into neat little cubes. So far as his programming goes, that's his entire purpose- but left alone to his own resources and reasoning, Wall-E developed a personality, and in so doing, developed a range of very human emotions.
Most powerful among those is a longing for companionship. Quite a bummer of an emotion to have when you're the last robot on earth!
Now what kind of movie would allow a situation like that to continue? Not a very good one, and THIS, my friends, is a very good movie.
One day a space ship lands on earth, carrying a beautiful, and decidedly feminine, probe named Eve. She finds the first plant to sprout on earth in 700 years and carries it back to her spaceship. And Wall-E, having fallen in love with her, stows away on the return trip.
What follows is a story that says as much about all of us as it does about Wall-E and Eve, and it's all symbolized in the simplicity of the act of holding hands.
It's a beautiful story, told quickly and efficiently, and it holds your attention throughout with dazzling graphics and fun-to-watch characters. Take the kids, take a date, or pop it in alone on a Saturday night. Anyway you do it, you can't lose. Wall-E is a winner.
I give it an 8 out of 10.
