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Wall.E
The critics absolutely adored Wall.E. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 96% fresh rating. In fact, it's even certified fresh. On Metacritic, it averages at 94/100 - and they are often a lot harsher with their overall critic consensus. Many critics hailed the film a masterpiece and one of Pixar's best. So why don't I like it?
Well, for me a lot of it is to do with the direction the story takes. Wall-E (Ben Burtt) starts off being about a lone rubbish-disposing robot on a post-apocalyptic Earth abandoned by humans because we've basically messed it up. Then a female robot called Eve (Elissa Knight) appears and a romantic relationship quickly blossoms between the two. For some reason, the plot suddenly deviates to being about what happened to the humans once they left the Earth and that's where the film starts to go downhill for me.
You see, once we find out our species survived it removes one of the most interesting aspects of the first twenty minutes. I'd rather what had happened to the humans remained a mystery as I think it worked better that way. Not everything needs to be explained and once you start to cover things like this it removes the movie's potential to be a thought-provoking piece of cinema. If the worst thing our species can look forward to is being fat slobs lazying around in space, then why should we care about the post-apocalyptic future of Wall-E?
The film would have been preferable for me if it had taken place entirely in the apocalyptic wasteland. It feels more like a love story between Wall-E and Eve; once you start adding the human characters and their spaceship the plot starts to become messy and unfocused. It's a shame because the silent comedy with Wall-E at the beginning is brilliant, especially the part when Wall-E holds a lady's bra over his eyes. This could have been a brilliant homage to silent cinema and the numerous silent romantic comedies the silent era is famous for.
Instead, it becomes more of a mean-spirited social commentary on our modern way of living. Even if this future were to happen, I doubt we would all be fat and incapable of moving. Maybe a reasonably-sized portion of society would be but equally I would imagine there would be members of a space society with a comfortable weight about them. Hell, there would probably even still be a bunch of skinny people who don't get enough to eat.
The scene with the fire-extinguisher in space seems a bit too obvious for a Pixar-quality joke too. If this were made by Aardman I think it could have worked due to their more wacky ideas but as a Pixar gag it just falls flat. It doesn't really scream Pixar to me in the same way the jokes in the likes of Toy Story and Monsters. Inc do.
One thing you can't fault Wall-E on however is the animation. The animation in this film is stunning; it simply oozes off the screen and is possibly Pixar's most beautiful visuals to date. The space scenes in particular look absolutely spectacular. I mean, just look at this still from the film:
Eight years on, the animation from this film has yet to be beaten. I don't think it ever will; it would take an extraordinary film from an animation company (probably Pixar themselves) to top the animated visuals here.
Overall, Wall-E is a film that definitely disappointed me when I saw it at the cinema. The first twenty minutes are good with their clear homage to 1920s silent cinema but once we find out what happened to the human race it starts to go downhill. The animation is stunning though and eight years on is still yet to be beaten.
The critics absolutely adored Wall.E. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 96% fresh rating. In fact, it's even certified fresh. On Metacritic, it averages at 94/100 - and they are often a lot harsher with their overall critic consensus. Many critics hailed the film a masterpiece and one of Pixar's best. So why don't I like it?
Well, for me a lot of it is to do with the direction the story takes. Wall-E (Ben Burtt) starts off being about a lone rubbish-disposing robot on a post-apocalyptic Earth abandoned by humans because we've basically messed it up. Then a female robot called Eve (Elissa Knight) appears and a romantic relationship quickly blossoms between the two. For some reason, the plot suddenly deviates to being about what happened to the humans once they left the Earth and that's where the film starts to go downhill for me.
You see, once we find out our species survived it removes one of the most interesting aspects of the first twenty minutes. I'd rather what had happened to the humans remained a mystery as I think it worked better that way. Not everything needs to be explained and once you start to cover things like this it removes the movie's potential to be a thought-provoking piece of cinema. If the worst thing our species can look forward to is being fat slobs lazying around in space, then why should we care about the post-apocalyptic future of Wall-E?
The film would have been preferable for me if it had taken place entirely in the apocalyptic wasteland. It feels more like a love story between Wall-E and Eve; once you start adding the human characters and their spaceship the plot starts to become messy and unfocused. It's a shame because the silent comedy with Wall-E at the beginning is brilliant, especially the part when Wall-E holds a lady's bra over his eyes. This could have been a brilliant homage to silent cinema and the numerous silent romantic comedies the silent era is famous for.
Instead, it becomes more of a mean-spirited social commentary on our modern way of living. Even if this future were to happen, I doubt we would all be fat and incapable of moving. Maybe a reasonably-sized portion of society would be but equally I would imagine there would be members of a space society with a comfortable weight about them. Hell, there would probably even still be a bunch of skinny people who don't get enough to eat.
The scene with the fire-extinguisher in space seems a bit too obvious for a Pixar-quality joke too. If this were made by Aardman I think it could have worked due to their more wacky ideas but as a Pixar gag it just falls flat. It doesn't really scream Pixar to me in the same way the jokes in the likes of Toy Story and Monsters. Inc do.
One thing you can't fault Wall-E on however is the animation. The animation in this film is stunning; it simply oozes off the screen and is possibly Pixar's most beautiful visuals to date. The space scenes in particular look absolutely spectacular. I mean, just look at this still from the film:
Eight years on, the animation from this film has yet to be beaten. I don't think it ever will; it would take an extraordinary film from an animation company (probably Pixar themselves) to top the animated visuals here.
Overall, Wall-E is a film that definitely disappointed me when I saw it at the cinema. The first twenty minutes are good with their clear homage to 1920s silent cinema but once we find out what happened to the human race it starts to go downhill. The animation is stunning though and eight years on is still yet to be beaten.