Wall-e's World

Two weeks ago my wife and I took our three year-old to see the Pixar movie Wall-e. I was extremely excited to see this film based on what I saw in the previews. It looked cute, unique, and the animation looked amazing. Pixar movies are generally a god-send for parents of toddlers who normally have to suffer through the likes of Dora the Explorer and Higglytown Heros on a daily basis. Pixar has a knack for creating movies that capture the imagination of kids and simultaneously entertain adults. I expected no less from WALL-e but came away quite disappointed.

First there is practically no dialog for the first 45 minutes. Because the animation is breathtaking the movie kept my attention but I certainly found myself hoping the whole movie wasn't going continue on in this fashion. Once WALL-e meets other robots and comes in contact with humans, the movie does begin to pick up it's pace and we get to see several clever and cute moments. However, in contrast to previous Pixar films, there weren't any other memorable characters besides WALL-e and his companion EVE.

My biggest complaint about this movie is that it utterly fails to accomplish, what one would assume is, it's main objective- entertain little kids. It's an animated movie rated G, marketed directly at little kids, so at minimum you would expect little kids to walk away enamored with WALL-e and his other robot friends. That simply didn't seem to be the case. Particularly with my three year-old, who lost interest in the film shortly after she ran out of pop corn. The lack of dialog, the lack of clever/humorous characters through the first half of the movie, and the adult messages and themes that dominated the movie led my daughter to attempt to escape the theater several times before the film was complete. Keep in mind my daughter absolutely loves Pixar movies and has no problem sitting through all 90 minutes of Nemo, Toy Story, Monster Inc., etc... Six months ago she sat completely still during, and thoroughly enjoyed, the rather mediocre "Bee Movie". So this was not simply a case of a three year-old's short attention span. In fact, when leaving the theater I heard other children voicing their disappointment. One child even said the movie was boring and asked if he and his parents could see a better movie next time.

Of course there were kids who did enjoy the movie. WALL-e is awfully cute and loveable and I'm sure Pixar will make loads of money off this film. However, the filmmakers seem to have (hopefully temporarily) lost their perspective or better yet they seem to have lost the child's perspective in their enthusiasm for incorporating more sophisticated themes and ideas into their film. Exactly how is a three or four year-old suppose to relate to WALL-e or even understand what he is doing for first 15-20 minutes of film? He's on a deserted planet filled with trash which he systematically compacts and stacks into sky-scrapper high columns. It is never explained, in a way little children can conceive, why WALL-e is all alone, why WALL-e is picking up trash, why EVE shuts down when WALL-e gives her a small plant as a gift, etc... When my three year-old watches Nemo, she understands why Nemo doesn't have a mommy and that Nemo gets taken from his father. When she watches Toy Story she can easily follow the story from the opening scene to the last. Yet she was never given a chance to really understand the WALL-e story because the filmmakers made little effort to explain it to her or show her something she could relate to.

My final criticism of the film is that I found the themes of human selfishness, gluttony, and corporate greed presented in a very obnoxious almost condescending manner. From the completely trash filled city metropolis to the fat blob humans it seemed as though the filmmakers felt as though they needed to beat the audience over the head constantly in order for us to understand just how dirty, selfish, and gluttonous we really are and that we are too stupid to see that big corporations are taking over our lives. Yes, the humans show a hint of goodness in the end but that too seemed condescending almost like a mother talking to a problem child, saying "I know you are really a good boy deep down inside."

Ultimately I would not recommend this film and I sincerely hope Pixar goes back to it's old model of simple stories and themes packed with witty dialog and loads of memorable characters because I could really use a break from Dora.