WALL-E

This vivid, poignant science fiction film (for some of us, Pixar’s masterpiece) cloaks a bracing environmental allegory in a sweet love story and some inspired slapstick comedy. Set 700 years from now in a toxic waste dump that looks an awful lot like the USA, the film finds solar-powered robot WALL-E developing human feelings. He’s curious about stuff, sometimes frightened, and desperately lonely – until he receives his first visitor in 700 years, a shiny, bright explorer robot by the name of Eve. WALL-E’s courtship is all the more touching for being essentially wordless. He shows her his collection of garbage, including bubble wrap, a lighter, and a VHS of “Hello Dolly”. She gives him the cold shoulder.

Act II transports us to the Mother Ship, a kind of cruise liner in space, where our descendants never leave their hover chairs and pliantly consume whatever messages the master computer feeds them. Here WALL-E’s most precious gift to Eve, a weed, threatens to turn their world upside down. This is delicious filmmaking, reminiscent at times of Charlie Chaplin and Stanley Kubrick (and running as hot and cold as that combination suggests).

The animation is superb. The rendering of the smoggy abandoned planet; gleaming futuristic technology; the nebulous beauty of the Milky Way are —what’s the phrase? Out of this world.

A pas-de-deux in zero gravity (Wall-E using a fire extinguisher for propulsion); Eve’s immediate effect on a previously dim lightbulb; her maternal glow as she carries out her primary directive; or the fleeting moment when first-time space traveler Wall-E turns back and sees the Earth, and tries to share his joy in the discovery… These are rare and precious treasures in a movie to savour.

Mar 28: Film will be preceded by a 20-minute talk by Dr Aaron Boley, co-director of The Outer Space Institute and UBC Physics and Astronomy Associate Professor

Dr. Boley will discuss the growing problem of “space junk”, the rapid proliferation of redundant satellites orbiting the earth.

The famously dialogue-less opening half of the film is pitch perfect; the film’s message of environmental protection never feels overly preachy or tacked on; and the connection between the two robots leads to some of the most beautiful moments in animation — and even film — history.

Indiewire

A Pixar movie that’s swooningly romantic while positing a bleak-as-hell fate for humanity…. [It’s] Deeply loveable, narratively bold, and already a vital piece of cinema in the climate crisis age.

Empire

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