Animation
WALL•E: Best Movie of the Summer
On 24, Aug 2008 | No Comments | In Animation, Inspiration | By Lorraine
I’m going to preface this post by admitting that I haven’t seen a lot of the movies out this summer, and I am a huge animation buff…so perhaps I’m biased in declaring this the Best Movie. A close second for me would be The Dark Knight (I love super-hero movies of all sorts). While that one was an amazing film, and the whole cast did an amazing job, on later reflection, I think I liked Christian Bale’s portrayal in Batman Begins better than DK. Not to get too off topic, though, WALL•E left me speechless: which is part of the reason it’s taken me a week to write this. If you haven’t seen it, go!
What struck me most upon watching WALL•E was how sophisticated it is. The plot is socially conscious without being preachy, and is, in essence, a romantic comedy more along the veins of Chaplin than science fiction. Like The Triplets of Belleville, it relies on visuals to further the story more than dialog. However, in doing so, it manages to bridge the gap between art film and family film. (Although Triplets arguably works as a family film, I would venture that it caters to a slightly older audience.) The character design pays homage to past films, while maintaining its own unique look, and the comedic timing is impeccable. The score was unusual for a Pixar film and worked better because of that.
Praise aside, there was one thing that felt off for me. Although the live action blend works well for the Hello Dolly! sequences that WALL•E watches in his home, they feel out of place in the video of BnL’s President. I felt a disconnect between the live action actors and the character design of the human characters: mainly between the images we see of Axiom’s first captains who should have been contemporaries of the President. (That, and I couldn’t help wondering how much Pixar had to give Apple to use their Start-Up Chime sound throughout the movie. I approved of the sound effect, but can we say “Product Placement?”)
In the end, WALL•E brings us back to the golden age of cartoon shorts. It’s subtle, poignant, and well-executed. I’ll be surprised if there’s not an Oscar waiting at the end of the awards season.