Pixar's latest animated feature WALL-E seems like a rebound from the disappointing Ratatouille last year. Though it's not the best Pixar production to me, it's one of the best in recent years for their Studio.
The director this time is Andrew Stanton, the one who last time brought us Finding Nemo, the best among Pixar's to me. So the hope is high naturally. Instead of the adventure under sea, this time it is about an adventure through the outer space!
The graphics were amazing and extraordinary, everything looks so real; within minutes into the film, I forgot that I was watching a cartoon, and I was immediately drawn into it. But as usual, it's not only the look and technique but the contents of the films that give Pixar such an outstanding and respectable status in Hollywood.
Apart from being the first futuristic space adventure movie for Pixar, it's also their first genuine love story. And it examines the relationship between the two sex nowadays! As we all know, nowadays women are in general smarter and are even more capable than men; they took up important positions in our society with higher directives, regardless of their somehow explosive mood-swings and occasionally quite destructive tantrums not unlike EVE's......Because of this, like EVE, women are too caught up in their directives, and end up having no time for any romance in their life. Therefore the striking figure of unmarried women in this era.
The love-at-first-sight of a shy WALL-E and his later persistent pursuit of EVE is quite charming and touching. And to make the audience feeling romantic about the relationship between two robots is quite a difficult feat. But I guess they succeed in this movie!
Apart from the obvious romance and "Green" message that the movie had, a few more subtle things worth noticing as well. For example, people intoxicated by the advanced technology like virtual video games and internets, making them so self-absorbed and isolated to the extent that they cannot enjoy life and appreciate the real world around them!
Also, not to mention the gags about people's immobility with junk-food diet and the resulted morbid obesity! I was alarmed by the left-alone Babies being "spoon-fed" by the nonsense from the TVs in one scene......I wish in our future, people won't be as depicted in the movie - thinking/dressing/acting similarly as they are told, under the big influence of the Global Economic Monopolisation!
My only complaint about this movie is that it seems somehow too long for the very limited material there, and it also lacks a bit of originality, so much so it follows a specific formula that made it highly predictable in the second half.
But anyway, what I love most about this movie is the consistent nostalgic feel:
The Hello Dolly clips, the dances, the oldies like Louis Armstrong's La vie en rose, the "junk" collections of WALL-E; not to mention the great painting styles of our past masters like Van Gogh, Seurat and Monet during the end credits...
In our era of great advances in technology, people continuously moves forward, welcoming the new stuffs and leaving lots of the out-dated things behind as junks...adapting a more soul-less lifestyles while leaving our hearts behind...
A little bit of nostalgia here should serve us well, I guess...at least to remind us of some of the good old things in the past...
