Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WALL-E, 16 Feb 2009
A beautifully envisioned, beautifully made film, I can honestly say WALL-E is one of those films that warms your heart everytime you watch it. I remember sitting in the cinema the night I first saw it and smiling, non-stop, for the entire performance.
The details within the story are subtle and brilliant, and the way in which the essentially technological objects are transformed into fascinating characters with a phenomenal amount of depth and emotion is astounding. The use of music is also very clever, and complements the impressive sound design perfectly helping create a film that is both visually and aurally stunning.
The extras are also well worth your time, if purely for the fantastic brand-new short BURN-E that fills in an interesting plot-point from the feature film, and gives a lovely bit of back-story that helps establish the beginnings of an entire WALL-E mythology. A truely lovely touch. The second disc also has plenty of fascinating features in which to endulge.
It's safe to say that WALL-E had a lot to live up to, not just in terms of how it would stand within the Pixar cohort, but also in my mind. The trailer made me fall in love, and the film was truly one of those films that managed to excel on all accounts. I really couldn't recommend this innovative, resonant, emotional film any more highly.
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77 of 92 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Quite simply, it's perfect!, 23 Aug 2008
WALL.E, while being loved by all the critics, probably won't be as popular with 'everyone', because it's so different from anything Pixar have done before: i.e. for a good 40 minutes of the film, there is almost absolutely no dialogue: therefore some of the younger viewers are likely to loose some interest. It plays out kind of like an extended version of one of Pixar's short films.
WALL.E is basically an adorable little rusty cube. He's been sent down to Earth to clear up all the mess that the humans made- before they left the planet and started a perfect life up with the stars, in a gigantic spaceship. Eventually he meets Eve- a smooth, white, hovering probe with a short temper. An amazing outer-space adventure kicks in after WALL.E discovers life on Earth.
It could be said that WALL.E is totally unpredictable, because sometimes you're never really sure what direction in which the plot is headed. There's not really a voice cast I can comment on, but all the characters -and the few lines of dialogue- are brilliantly believable. In my opinion, it's genius how Pixar have created such emotion between characters through simple eye movements and how fast the characters move.
I'd say that this is probably Pixar's best film; Ratatouille I thought could not be bettered- but clearly I was wrong. WALL.E is able to make even the most stone-hearted audience members laugh and cry in equal measure. It's a classic, obviously. Everything about it touches on greatness: the characters, the landscapes, the quality of animation, the ideas, the imagination... the list is endless.
It's a little film with a big message.
There's a feeling you get at the end of this film, a buzz, a tingling sensation from head to toe: it's called joy.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
PURE artistry, 24 Jan 2009
Having seen such unequalled masterpieces like Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, I rather naively believed that I'd seen it all. That there was nothing else that Pixar could deliver.
Going to the pictures to see WALL-E made me realise that I HADN'T seen it all, and most likely never ever will. Pixar takes everything to a whole new level here. The CGI, the storytelling, the presentation goes BEYOND all their previous works. It's totally unlike anything they've ever done before, and the result is a true work of art that shouldn`t be dismissed.
The setting is future Earth. It's now a polluted, rubbish-tip of a wasteland that the human race has abandoned. The only life-form left is a remarkable, reliable little waste-disposal robot labelled WALL-E. He's the very last of a failed clean-up operation and has been on his own for 700 years. He's still going after all that time, though, and has developed a personality and a great curiosity for all things human. But he's also very lonely.
That all changes when a sleek-search robot codenamed EVE comes to Earth to carry out her `classified' objective. Soon, WALL-E's desire for companionship turns into a true outer space adventure that will uncover so much about the Earth and the human race.
Now, if it's Pixar, the CGI goes without question. You can always count on it to be faultlessly beautiful. However, the animators have TRULY surpassed themselves with WALL-E. Things like the polluted landscapes, dust, rubbish, rust/decay, the way robotics work, the sun's rays, the beauty of the cosmos etc is just absolutely astounding. When I was watching the film, it was all animated/presented in a way that was just so realistic and life-like. Even things like the camera shots/focus were expertly pulled off.
And if that wasn't impressive enough, WALL-E turned out to be a film that incorporated live-action sequences as well, featuring actual actors in front of the camera. The way it blends with the CGI is just so seamless and adds another dimension to the rich storytelling. NOTHING feels out of place here.
But the reason why Pixar are the undisputed masters of this sort of thing is not just because of the imagery. The plots that they write to go with the animation are equally renowned. There is just so much to WALL-E's story. It incorporates so many different aspects of storytelling in such creative, intricate fashion. For instance, the first half-hour is virtually the equivalent of a silent-movie. There's no dialogue whatsoever in this part of the film, which relies on actions, expressions and the setting to tell the tale. And it works fabulously, making the movie so captivating. It reels you in and doesn't let go, proving that actions speak louder than words.
As things progress, the viewer becomes exposed to such a wonderful cast of human and robot characters, so much philosophy and a perfect representation of the best and worst aspects of humanity. Not only that, but there's also some absolutely brilliant humour throughout, which is typical of Pixar films. It evokes so many emotions and makes you realise that there is hope at the end. Plus there are some absolutely brilliant homages to
classic sci-fi films, such as 2001: Space Odyssey.
WALL-E himself is such a wonderful character, deserving of enormous sympathy. He's also an unlikely hero that's impossible NOT to love and root on for. EVE is a polar opposite but just as easy to fall in love with. Both are treated with such great development and how they both convey their emotions is wonderfully executed. It's a love story that is just so plausibly conceived and executed, which is testament to the film's artistry.
And finally, the end credits. This normally wouldn't mean anything to anyone, but these really do deserve just as much praise. When they roll, it perfectly symbolises the evolution of mankind through the telling of wonderfully animated cave-drawings, Egyptian markings, and paintings in the style of Monet and Van Gogh. It adds even more power to the film's ending. Also, Peter Gabriel's "Down to Earth" is a fantastic closing song and there's a brilliant recap done in the style of retro computer graphics e.g. old school Nintendo. It all rounds off something that can be called a perfect film.
As for the DVD package, it's a two-disc set that folds out and has a beautifully embedded foil cover. There are some outstanding special-features as well that fills the set up quite nicely. There's an audio commentary with director Andrew Stanton, a look at the Sound Design, trailers, the in-depth documentary "The Pixar Story", some great deleted scenes, live-action "BnL" shorts, "Making Of" featurettes, a "Lots of Bots" storybook (which is good for kids), a "Bot Files" database (profiling the characters in the film) and WALL-E's Treasures and Trinkets, a collection of hilarious mini-films.
All these extras are fantastic, but really, the ones that you SHOULD check out more than any other are the animated shorts. Starting with Presto, this is the theatrical short that accompanied WALL-E in the cinemas. The premise is a magician trying to pull the classic "rabbit-out-of-the-hat", only the rabbit won't cooperate until he's had his carrot. And BURN-E is the all new animated short that tells the tale of a repair-bot cursed with bad-luck, who was just trying to do his job throughout the course of the film. Both these shorts are absolutely hilarious and are five-minutes of utter perfection.
WALL-E is one of those things that's easily on a par with Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and the rest of Pixar's masterpieces. It is simply a phenomenal film that will appeal to kids, adults and all animation lovers. Do not hesitate to own it.
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