WALL-E (2008)

I thoroughly enjoyed Pixar's new movie and for the most part I thoroughly enjoy every Pixar movie.

Even Cars. And that was just Shoe People on wheels.

Anyway, I just want to make it clear, I like Pixar. A lot.

But.... I do have a one little niggle with Pixar and surely I can't be the only person that has noticed it.

See if you can spot it...

TOY STORY
Wow it's the hidden world of Toys, that's cool. Oh, I see what you've done, they're toys that come to life when there's no-one around, but wait ha ha Buzz doesn't know he's a toy!

Uh Oh, Woody doesn't like being the second best toy, he used to be number one. Oh no! He got rid of Buzz, now Buzz is lost! I hope Woody and the others can somehow team up and find him. Yes! Brilliant! They did! Because when you work together it all works out.

BUGS LIFE
Oho, hello! What's this? The hidden world of Ants and Grasshoppers. It's a play on Aesop, how clever. Oh and I see what you've done, the Grasshoppers are like evil tyrants and the Ants are the peaceful villagers, it's like The Seven Samurai. Even though they have superior numbers the Ants give in, hmmm it's like they've lost their self belief.

Uh Oh, Flik the rebellious Ant doesn't like being told what to do by lazy grasshoppers, he believes in Ants. Oh no! He's gone off alone on a mad quest, I hope he can find someone to team up with him and help the Ants find their self belief. Yes! Oh brilliant they did. Take that grasshoppers! When you work together it all works out.

TOY STORY 2
Wow it's the er, hidden world of Toys. Again.
But wait a minute I thought everything worked out here. Gosh! I hope someone/something isn't going to get lost and need finding.

Uh Oh, Woody got broken and bought by an obsessive toy collector, now he's lost and needs finding. I hope Buzz and the others can team up and find him. Yep... they did, because when you work together it all works out.

MONSTERS INC
Amazing! The hidden world of Monsters. Their world is powered by fear from our world. That's cool. Surely no-one is going to get lost and need rescuing here. I mean they're 10 foot tall, hairy monsters, right?

Well, this time they really go nuts. Either that or there was a mix up in typing because this time... wait for it... they find something and team up to get rid of it! Yeah! Alright, woo! High five! Flip reverse it!

A kid from the real world gets lost in Monster world and found by some Monsters, I did not see that coming. Incredible! I hope they can team up and get rid of her. Yes... they can. Because when you work together you can get rid of things you've found or find things you've lost.

FINDING NEMO
They're not even trying here, the hidden world of talking fish? Are they special fish? Spy fish, robot fish, magic fish? No? Just the talking.

OK, well I'll give it a go. But the title doesn't sound promising.

It almost sounds like something needs to be found by someone. And that usually means it's been lost.

Wait a minute... they haven't done another film where something gets lost and needs finding have they?

It's like they sat round after a crate of brewskis and said "Look maaaan, no-one *hic* noticed the last four times *burrrp* how obvious can we make it and still get away with it? Huh? Put Finding in the title...ha ha... dude you rock that is *hic* insane!"

So Nemo the talking fish gets caught by a diver... oh dear. I... erm... hope... that... he... erm... gets found? Oh look his talking fish Dad has teamed up with another talking fish... and some talking surf dude turtles and a talking pelican. I hope they can work together to find Nemo. Yeah, they can, because when you work together and do something you've done four times before, sometimes it's so obvious that people don't even notice it.

THE INCREDIBLES
Genius! The hidden world of retired super heroes and their dysfunctional families trying to live normal lives.

Uh Oh! Mr. incredible doesn't want to be retired or normal, in fact he wants action and secret missions. Gasp! He's been lured into a trap! On a remote Island. By a super villain!

I wonder if his dysfunctional family can over come their petty infighting and work together to find him and then solve this problem? What do you reckon?

CARS
My least favourite, the shitty hidden world of fucked up talking cars.

With eyes.

A world where no people exist to build them... OK. Where does the petrol come from? Don't get me started.

So... a red car gets lost in a shitty backwater town. Then he teams up with a load of freaky talking shit-mobiles from Shittsville to try and win a big race. With the help of an ex-race champ who found and lost glory.

But the red car gives up first place and loses because he finds the true meaning of friendship or racing or something.

Anyway it works out because he got lost, then found out what racing was about by working together with someone who found then lost past race glory and fame. Finally instead of winning he looses on purpose because of what he has found. It's a loss/find team up festival.

But with shit anthropomorphic cars with eyes. They. Make. No. Sense.

RATOUILLE
A nervous unlucky kid has just lost his mother and, unbeknownst to him, his inheritance of a famous French restaurant. A restaurant he turns up at, asking for a job.

Meanwhile a rat has lost his entire colonies home due to his unusual love of cooking, in particular the cookery of the dead owner of the previously mentioned famous French restaurant.

Oh yeah and the restaurant itself has lost all credibility after its famous owners death.

Now there is no fucking way these two can team up. Right?

But Pixar law dictates that if something is lost it must be found and the only way to find it is by teaming up... so...

By teaming up with a rat he manages to pretend to be a master chef thus finding confidence, finding a new family of sorts and finding his inheritance whilst the rat finds a new home and a place to cook and they both bring back the credibility of the restaurant.

Because when you work together... with a rat... to cook stuff... it all works out.

WALL-E
Humans have killed all plant life and therefore lost Earth due to over consumption and pollution. They blast off to live in space.

WALL-E robots are left behind to clean up Earth, but 700 years later there is only one still functioning and he's a become a bit eccentric, almost human. He's all alone though, so no chance of any teaming up or working together.

Until one day he finds a plant.

Suddenly an EVE probe arrives and, while scanning for organic life, finds both the plant and WALL-E. He promptly falls in love with her and ends up following the probe back her ship. But once they're aboard, a malfunctioning HAL style AI wants to destroy the plant and not notify the humans that Earth can once more support organic life.

The plant gets taken away and WALL-E and EVE get put in a sort of robo-asylum with a load of wacky malfunctioning robots.

Using the clues from the previous eight films, guess what happens next.

Now having said all of that I like Pixar and I loved WALL-E but fuck me, if one more person looses something and has to team up to find it I'll go fucking bug nuts.

I imagine at Pixar they have "Work together and work it out" and "You'll find what you've lost if we look together" screwed on every door, wall and ceiling in large bold gold lettering.

It's probably chiselled in fifty foot high marble letters at the entrance. The centre piece of their landscape garden features six words in complex topiary formed from hundred foot high bushes reading "LOSE IT. TEAM UP. FIND IT"

Anyway, WALL-E looked beautiful, the robot character design throughout was stunning and for the Mac geeks out there there's plenty of little love letters to Apple hidden throughout, most notably with sexy, shiny EVE design.

The stand-out element though is clearly the design and characterisation of WALL-E. It's a truly phenomenal piece of animation. His baby Johnny 5 via ET design genuinely manages to tug the heartstrings in some of the more subtle moments. But I loved just watching him go about his business - to be honest I'd have settled for an hour and a half of him just pottering around. The scene where he gets up for work had me grinning from ear to ear.

The first half of the film is a wonderfully grim, grimy glipse at the future and the score that accompanies this largely silent segment was so right it hurt. Desolate sci-fi scenes of future Earth, flickering billboards, dried seas, piles of WALL-E crushed junk and vehiclular graveyards all rendered with jaw dropping attention to detail. Any lack of dialogue didn't even register because each scene was so deliciously composed and executed. In fact it was more of a positive, part of me wishes they had chanced their arm a bit more and gone for a pure silent movie.

Unfortunately when there are any lengthy scenes featuring humans or when the manic mecha Tom & Jerry chase sequences kick in things started to sag. But there is enough laughs, references, oohs and aahs to weather the storm. The space dance sequence being a particularly pretty piece of pixel pushing.

Alongside the humour and awe inspiring artistry is a pretty mean streak of enviro-based satire. I especially liked the ubiquitous global corporation BUY & LARGE, a fairly blunt attack on super-size consumerism.

The hideously bloated baby people lolling on hover chairs pretty much clubbed the point home. I'd like to say that I didn't like the human scenes because it was so painfully close to the bone. It is but somehow they just annoyed me and had me wondering when the robots were coming back.

Overall it's a deceptively simple yet powerful story that, with minor quibbles aside, is a Pixar high point. Some bits are genuinely sad, some bits are genuinely funny while the remainder is bluntly pessimistic.

There are occasional explosions of activity and sound but for my money WALL-E is at its best when it's quiet. Often transcending previous Pixar output when it's silent.

The fact that they lose something then find it, again, isn't so bad after all. Because it's in the end it's not about losing plant life or even losing Earth.

It's about losing humanity.

The humans in WALL-E have devolved into giant stupid sub-human fatties. Their brains are so fucking dim that they don't know what dancing or farming is. They pootle about and mechanically slurp their liquid meals through a straw, unable to move from their giant floating beds. Shielded from reality and other human contact by a constantly flickering TV screen that gibbers bullshit and adverts while they jabber relentless, meaningless shite into a mobile phone.

They're locked into pointless loops of dumb dull inactivity, their lives are worthless, they aren't humans - they're the robots.

Problem is it won't take us 700 years to get there. We'll be there in 7.

Meanwhile, it is WALL-E that has evolved and become more human than the humans. He is the one you identify with, not the repulsive obese thickos drooling their lives away.

If we have to have another Pixar kids movie about losing something then I can't think of a better thing to warn kids about than losing their humanity through inactivity, lack of education, bullshit mass media, logos, mobile phones and fucking super sized meals.

Shame it's about 10 years too late then.