WALL-E

WALL-E is a cute little romp in the way that Charlie Chaplain's adventures are cute -a compliment to be sure. I was entertained by a love story reminiscent in some ways to The Tramp's love stories. When the plot shifted to saving the humans, I was less involved. This is a common complaint. It's the only complaint I've heard. Humans just get in the way of these two robots in their perpetual meet-cute. It's not so off putting as to distract from all the films other considerable quantity of qualities, and must have been added to give the characters something interesting to do. Otherwise, the story could have been kept in short film form and been adequate enough. With all the added shenanigans, we do get a heart wrenching scene between a rebuilt E.V.E. and a hopeful E.V.E. that ends the film more sweetly than a short film with them making blocks of trash could. It's cute and creates two interesting hunks of metal that never utter more than their names and the word "directive." But WALL-E shows how much you can say with so little. And, oh yeah, it looks great, too. It's a good film, but I feel it's becoming overrated. I wouldn't put it in the ranks of Pixar's best.

***1/2