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Another one from the files–here’s my review of WALL-E, pub­lished in the August 2008 Carolina Journal.

Disney/Pixar’s lat­est ani­mated odyssey opens to a much bleaker world than the one out­side the the­ater doors. A shell of aban­doned satel­lites rings a wasted Earth mounded in trash and stud­ded with spent nuclear reac­tors and empty cities. The sky has taken on a cop­per hue from the con­tin­ual dust­storms, and even the ultra­mod­ern tran­sit sys­tems and star­ports are empty and wind­blown. When the Earth’s pol­lu­tion accu­mu­lated to an unliv­able level, the humans boarded cruise-ships-to-the-stars and left an army of Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth Class robots to deal with the ruined planet.

The only prob­lem is the project failed. Only one robot still works on, and he is lonely. WALL-E, voiced by Ben Burtt, toils cheer­fully dur­ing the day, but spends his evenings won­der­ing what it would be like to have a friend. Pollution-ruined robots dot the land­scape, and WALL-E’s only com­pan­ion is a cockroach.

When an inquis­i­tive Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, a gor­geous but sharp-tempered space probe named EVE, Elissa Knight, sud­denly drops into his envi­ron­ment, he is instantly smit­ten. He takes her to his “home” to show her the odd­i­ties he has col­lected in his work. When she finds a seedling in his hoard, though, she col­lects the plant and goes into hiber­na­tion. When her car­rier rocket returns to pick her up, WALL-E stows away as the space­ship leaves for the Crab Nebula.

When the robots and their pre­cious plant reach the Axiom, an immense star­ship shel­ter­ing the human race, they encounter another trou­bled world. Waited on hand-and-foot by a crew of obse­quious robot stew­ards, the humans have lived a life devoid of phys­i­cal exer­tion or per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity. They are unable even to act for their own good.

EVE’s plant, like the olive sprig the dove returned to Noah’s ark, indi­cates that Earth can sup­port life again and human­ity can return. The robots are not so ready to relin­quish their power, and a colos­sal strug­gle erupts over who will con­trol the plant. EVE and WALL-E must race against time to rouse the humans if they are ever to return to Earth.

WALL-E is a per­son­able lit­tle robot, and his cheer­ful labor and inno­cent curios­ity will endear him to view­ers. EVE is ini­tially cold, until she replays her mem­o­ries of Earth for the star­ship cap­tain and real­izes the lit­tle things WALL-E did for her. Her sub­se­quent devo­tion to WALL-E, who risks his life to recover the plant and com­plete her mis­sion, is touch­ing. It raises inter­est­ing ques­tions about robot romances but plays out well in the movie.

The under­ly­ing themes are more prob­lem­atic, though. Humans are depicted as finally hav­ing ruined the earth with nuclear reac­tors, oil tankers, satel­lites, and the excess of con­sumerism — sym­bol­ized by bill­boards on the moon. The film issues a strong indict­ment against mod­ern soci­ety, por­tray­ing the human race as a self­ish horde of con­sumers focused solely on leisure and enter­tain­ment. BNL, the global cor­po­ra­tion that built and oper­ates the Axiom, is actu­ally short for “Buy-N-Large.” Every human on board the star­ship lives in a motor­ized hov­er­chair, their every whim sup­plied by the robot stew­ards. Virtual golf and ten­nis are com­mon pas­times on the Axiom, but few of the grotesquely obese pas­sen­gers even know that there is a real swim­ming pool aboard.

These adverse impres­sions are mit­i­gated some­what by a plot that pushes the humans finally to develop some mus­cle and that shows the envi­ron­ment finally becom­ing hab­it­able again. Political jabs are less bal­anced, though. The brief­ing room of the White House is shown twice, with the BNL logo sub­sti­tuted for the Great Seal, as the for­mer CEO of BNL, Fred Willard, issues dis­as­trous advice in a heavy Texas accent, urg­ing his lis­ten­ers to “stay the course” in a not-so-subtle com­par­i­son to President Bush.

These envi­ron­men­tal and soci­etal premises have a decid­edly alarmist slant, but the actual plot­line bal­ances it to a large degree. The char­ac­ters are mas­ter­fully drawn, and Pixar’s ani­ma­tion is flaw­less as always. Taken alto­gether, “WALL-E” is a supremely enter­tain­ing film, with more seri­ous themes. It will be enjoyed by all ages, and well deserves a place next to “Finding Nemo,” “The Incredibles,” and “Cars” on the fam­ily DVD shelves.