Wall-E

From the moment the first preview was released over a year ago, I've highly anticipated the release of Wall-E. We didn't get a glimpse of any particular plot in the early previews. Just character. And Wall-E had me at...well, whatever Wall-E says.

A robot. Fluent in the language of R2-D2. Rummaging through relics from a forgotten past. That's basically the gist given to us in the previews.

And that's what we get in the first half of the film from the wizards of animation at Pixar. We follow Wall-E through his daily routine. Wake up. Get some sun, or in Wall-E's case, solar energy to power up for the day. Strap on your cooler like a knapsack. And go to work. Wall-E's objective is to clean up the colossal mess we left behind on Earth. Scoop. Crunch. Stack. Mounds of our trash tower like mountains over abandoned cities.

But Wall-E doesn't throw it all away. The cooler doesn't exactly hold his lunch. Part of the charm of Wall-E is his natural curiosity for our junk. Lighters. Rubix cubes. Old bras. Talking, wall-mounted fish. A fire extinguisher. And an old VHS tape of Hello, Dolly. These all become part of his collection that give an otherwise unintelligible robot personality.

And that's why I adored the first half of Wall-E. The only human dialogue comes from a pre-recorded message by the last human leader on Earth (I loved the "Stay the course" shout-out) and Hello, Dolly. And I can really appreciate that. Books are capable of conveying so much without a single word of written dialogue. Movies don't share the same luxury. You simply have what you can see. And yet Wall-E becomes a fully fleshed-out lovable character without muttering a handful of words we can understand. Such a lovely 40 minutes of movie!

That's why I don't really feel like mentioning, or even acknowledging, the last half of Wall-E. Wall-E couldn't carry the plot of this movie by himself so it was only natural for him to interact with the humans of the future. They were less than lovable. Whereas the first half of the movie was character-driven, the last half was plot-, or more accurately, message-driven. Message with a capital M.

Don't get me wrong. The last act wasn't bad. It just wasn't as entertaining as Wall-E on Earth. We still see and hear and feel with Wall-E, but he's no longer center stage. I'd give the first half of Wall-E 9 out of 10. The second half, 6 out of 10. (If you are good at math, that makes an overall rating of 7.5 out of 10.)

I just hope that in the future (or on the bonus features of the DVD release) they give Wall-E a movie all to himself.