WALL·E (2008)

In the distant future, a small waste collecting robot inadvertently embarks on a space journey that will ultimately decide the fate of mankind.

Director:

Andrew Stanton

Writers:

Andrew Stanton (original story), Pete Docter (original story),

Stars:

Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin

Top 250 #60 | Won 1 Oscar. Another 52 wins & 49 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ben Burtt	...	WALL·E / M-O (voice)
Elissa Knight	...	EVE (voice)
Jeff Garlin	...	Captain (voice)
Fred Willard	...	Shelby Forthright, BnL CEO
MacInTalk	...	AUTO (voice)
John Ratzenberger	...	John (voice)
Kathy Najimy	...	Mary (voice)
Sigourney Weaver	...	Ship's Computer (voice)
Lori Alan	...	(voice)
Bob Bergen	...	(voice)
John Cygan	...	(voice)
Pete Docter	...	(voice)
Paul Eiding	...	(voice)
Donald Fullilove	...	(voice) (as Don Fullilove)
Teresa Ganzel	...	(voice)

Storyline

In a distant, but not so unrealistic, future where mankind has abandoned earth because it has become covered with trash from products sold by the powerful multi-national Buy N Large corporation, WALL-E, a garbage collecting robot has been left to clean up the mess. Mesmerized with trinkets of Earth's history and show tunes, WALL-E is alone on Earth except for a sprightly pet cockroach. One day, EVE, a sleek (and dangerous) reconnaissance robot, is sent to Earth to find proof that life is once again sustainable. WALL-E falls in love with EVE. WALL-E rescues EVE from a dust storm and shows her a living plant he found amongst the rubble. Consistent with her "directive", EVE takes the plant and automatically enters a deactivated state except for a blinking green beacon. WALL-E, doesn't understand what has happened to his new friend, but, true to his love, he protects her from wind, rain, and lightning, even as she is unresponsive. One day a massive ship comes to reclaim EVE, but WALL-E, ...

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Plot Keywords:

robot | plant | future | rescue | captain | 

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Taglines:

An Adventure Beyond the Ordinar-E

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Genres:

Animation | Adventure | Family | Romance | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

G

Details

Official Sites:

Disney [gb] Disney [uk]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

27 June 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Adventures of WALL·E 3D

Box Office

Budget:

$180,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£4,253,736 (UK) (18 July 2008)

Gross:

$223,806,889 (USA) (2 January 2009)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

98 min

Sound Mix:

DTS-ES SDDS Dolby Digital EX

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The AXIOM was part inspired by the Disney Cruise Line and several of the resort hotels in Las Vegas.

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Goofs

WALL-E did not find his plant inside a closed refrigerator through which sunlight could not penetrate. Although it was behind a refrigerator door, the door had been removed from its hinges and was propped up against the corner of the fridge. WALL-E cut the door with his laser simply because it was too big for him to move as one piece.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Voice in commercial: Too much garbage in your face? There's plenty of space out in space! BnL StarLiners leaving each day. We'll clean up the mess while you're away.

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Crazy Credits

In the closing Pixar logo, Luxo Junior's light bulb burns out after he flattens the letter "I". WALL-E enters and replaces the light bulb with a power-saving lamp, then accidentally knocks down the letter "R" as he tries to leave. He tries to cover it up by posing like an "R".

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Connections

Referenced in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire: Episode #7.114 (2009)

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Soundtracks

"Put On Your Sunday Clothes"
Music & Lyrics by Jerry Herman
Performed by Michael Crawford
Courtesy of 20th Century Fox Film Corporation

User Reviews

An A+ for Wall-E! One of the best movies this century!

Wall-E is the movie experience I've been looking for. I haven't seen a new film this richly entertaining, thrilling, touching and satisfying since Spider-Man 2. It is truly the finest Pixar or animated CGI film to date. I can discuss it without spoilers easily because it's one of those films, like 2001: A Space Odyssey, that exists more as a pure experience of the heart and the senses than as a collection of events that we're supposed to keep track of intellectually. Wall-E rises above that kind of unnecessary complication into the same kind of space occupied by dreams and the imagination.

This film is beautifully animated, of course, to that magical Pixar point where even piles of what should be disgusting trash somehow look breathtakingly gorgeous and even fairly realistic-looking roaches look cute. But much more importantly, the heart, the emotion in this movie is unlike anything I've experienced at the cinema since Forrest Gump. Certainly my tear ducts have not welled up while watching a movie this much since then. I fell in like with the character of Wall-E when I saw the trailer. Watching the movie, I fell in love with him within about 2 minutes. Shortly after that, I fell in love with the idea of Wall-E falling in love.

My previous favorite movie romance is Superman and Lois Lane in the original Superman films. The love story, or the love experience of Wall-E and Eve is perhaps the first I've seen since then that operates at and succeeds on that same level. These couples create an uncomplicated, innocent, simple, yet deep and powerful bond. They capture the experience of love at first sight, writ large. They possess an instant chemistry that tells you they belong together from the first time they see one another and makes you root for their relationship throughout the film. Wall-E and Eve share moments together of real cinematic beauty, true hilarity, frightening sadness, frustrating difficulty and delightful satisfaction. It's a testament to the level of genius at which the Pixar storytellers are operating that we feel every beat of this relationship resonate every step of the way despite the fact that the characters are robots that are not modeled off of humans and speak no more than a handful of words throughout the movie (this animated movie is refreshingly free of obvious "guest star" voices or any over-the-top stand-up comedians trying to upstage the movie).

Just like in the first Superman films, once you care about the characters as individuals and care about their relationship, it's almost impossible for the rest of the movie not to work. You're hooked at hello. Wall-E adds all the expected complications to keep the would-be lovers from getting together most of the time. There is a truly great "McGuffin" that keeps the heroes and villains busy for quite a while (the item in question is something outwardly simple that ends up holding the key to something more important than anything in the world). The pacing during most of these adventures is as breakneck as anything out of the Star Wars films and the action is always staged with crystal clarity. There are several scenes of peril for Wall-E that are reminiscent of that oddly powerful sequence in Short Circuit 2 when Johnny 5 is almost killed. The filmmakers pull absolutely no punches when it comes to running your heart through the ringer over characters you care about. It probably helps that you can do a lot more physical damage to a robot character than you can to a human character while keeping a G rating and still getting the audience dramatically worried about their survival.

Even on top of the action, the emotion, the visuals and the humor, Wall-E goes the extra mile into thought-provoking thematic territory. The film never hits you over the head with anything preachy and doesn't really even outright tell you what its opinions on the subjects it raises are. It also doesn't explicitly lay out explanations for everything that exists in Wall-E's world (there are no "talking killer" scenes and very little verbal exposition). I think the bits of ambiguity work here because they add to the sense of mystery, helplessness and alienation that most of the characters in the movie feel to some degree.

There are human characters in this movie too, quite a few. I think that's necessary because if humans aren't shown in a robot world, you have to wonder what purpose were the robots designed to serve? That was a curiosity of the earlier CGI movie, Robots. Most of the humans in Wall-E aren't as developed as the robots, but I think that's because they exist more to represent the whole of humanity rather than particular individuals. We're asked to ponder the consequences of the choices they make as though the whole society was moving in that direction, not just one person. Wall-E and Eve are the heart of this movie but the humans are used to add some intellectual gravity for the audience to chew on.

Other choices made in the movie might also leave room for debate, such as the integration of some live-action footage into the film. But because the movie as a whole is so audaciously stimulating and brilliantly satisfying, it's a plus that they left us with a few unresolved or unusual things to think about and question after getting off of the great emotional and visual roller-coaster experience. Wall-E truly serves up everything that I think an audience could want in a movie experience. It will be very easy for me to watch this one over and over again. It is a modern-day classic that I believe should earn a place in cinema history as the "2001" of CGI animated films, both of them movies of indisputable brilliance, unyielding imagination and unending entertainment.

Footnote: The pre-movie short is an awesome, violent Looney Tunes/Roger Rabbit-esquire toon. It wants only to entertain and does.