Wall-E (2008)

  (3/5) – animation, comedy
Perhaps with all the non-stop publicity and, dare I say, hype, surrounding this movie, my expectations were set too high. Wall-E did not meet my expectations. It’s just an OK movie. The story was unoriginal pabulum, that should, nonetheless, be entertaining for a family that is looking for a safe summertime viewing experience.

Reviewers have mentioned that the movie is a strong critique on consumerism. Yawn! I think it is more of a commentary on a lazy society’s willingness to be lead around like lemmings which, perhaps, includes to movies like Wall-E.

Wall-E is the lone, and lonely, remnant of a humanity that abandonned earth for the stars centuries before. I laughed a few times, but spent most of the movie thinking about how board I was and trying to understand what everyone saw in this movie. Every scene is predictable. Nothing to delight in that hasn’t been done before. As for the scene pictured on the right, rather than being enchanted with the ‘dancing in space’ routine, all I could think about was “how long will the fire extinguisher last?”

Pixar’s production was typically ‘pixar-perfect’. But a well-made movie without much of story doesn’t a good movie make. Wall-E is about on par with Pixar’s lesser-movies Toy Story 2 (1999), A Bug’s Life (1998) and  Monsters Inc (2001). The Incredibles (2004) (the best of them all), Toy Story 1 (1995), Finding Nemo (2003) (the 2nd best), Cars (2006) and even Ratatouille (2007) were all better Pixar movies than Wall-E.

There were, however, two exceptional aspects to my Wall-E viewing experience. First, I paid $13 for a ticket – the most I’ve spent on a movie ticket in my life. Second, it was the first digitally projected movie I’ve ever seen.

Toronto’s new AMC Metropolis 24 digital theatre at Yonge and Dundas’ Toronto Life Square is, I believe, the first digital cinema in Toronto. I enjoyed the stunning clarity of the digital projection (including the breathtakingly real-to-life-looking movie trailers) more than the movie itself. I’m really looking forward to the future of digitally projected movies! But the Metropolis – Yikes! The cinema itself was great (once you ride the 4 escalators up to get there). But I question the really odd multi-level-cinema-atop-multi-level-food-court architecture of the Toronto Life Square that the cinema sits atop.

As for Wall-E, it is a forgettable, derivative film. There’s nothing new here. One commentator said Wall-E is this generation’s ET. That may be. But Wall-E mimics ET so much that it seems little more than a 2008 ET rip-off.

What did Wall-E see in Eve anyway? She’s definitely not a Dale-type! 🙂

Reference: |
Reviews: Roger Ebert | IMDb External Reviews | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic

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