Wall.E

Certificate: U

Voices of: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin

Release date: 2008

4 out of 5

4

Pixar, the animation studio behind Toy Story and Finding Nemo, delivered another stunning movie with Wall.E – a space adventure that thrills adults as much as kids. In the future, mankind has had to abandon Earth after it became filled with rubbish. Robots had been left behind to clear up the mess, but have all broken down and only battered little Wall.E remains, clearing up and compacting the trash each day with only a cockroach pet for comfort. That is until the day that a sleek white robot named Eve lands on earth, her mission to prove that life is once again sustainable, so that humans (currently floating in orbit in a cruise-ship like space ship) can return to the planet.

Beautifully animated, this is an unusual, daring mix of grown-up ideas and childish adventure. Wall.E yearns for a companion having watched a scratchy videotape of Hello Dolly (pausing it in wonder when the leads hold hands), and at this movie’s heart there is a love story, as well as an eco-friendly message. There’s adventure, too, as Wall.E follows Eve back to the Axiom space station, and even comedy – Wall.E’s actions are sometimes reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin’s The Little Tramp, or Woody Allen in Annie Hall. What’s even more astonishing is that much of this moving, funny, sad story is told with very little dialogue used at all. Of course, little ones won’t get the movie’s save-the-planet moral, or notice writer/director Andrew Stanton’s clear love of movies like Star Wars, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, ET: The Extra Terrestrial and 2001: A Space Odyssey, which he pays homage to here, but they will be enchanted by the cute little robot’s beeps and idiosyncracies, and his lonely eyes that will break your heart.

Is Wall.E suitable for kids? Here are our parents’ notes...

The movie is quite dark and sad but the deeper meaning won’t be understood by small children so it’s unlikely they will be upset by it.

Very little ones may be scared when Eve first arrives and fires at Wall.E.

They may also be scared when he is in danger towards the end of the movie.

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