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Andrew Stanton
Wall-E (2008) is an animation film that focuses on the story and the
characters, not on the graphic gimmicks.
The ending is a typical pathetic Hollywood ending, but the beginning, in which Wall-E is protrayed as a sort of Charlie Chaplin of the robot world, is cute.
The action takes place centuries after a big corporation devised a plan to
send all humans in space aboard a cruise spaceship while tiny robots named
Wall-E were unleashed all over the planet to get rid of the garbage that
had made life impossible. Centuries later there seems to be only one of
these tiny robots still alive, and the only living creature is a bug that
follows it everywhere. Wall-E has created for himself a life of routines
and a home of sorts inside an abandoned truck. Every morning the little
robot gets out of its house and scours the landscape for garbage to compact.
He then piles up the compacted garbage into skyscrapers that now constitute
the skyline of his territory.
Every now and then, it also picks interesting items for his personal
collection. Mostly they are spare parts that Wall-E needs to repair itself
and continue operating. Needless to say, it's a lonely life. His only joy
is to watch an old tape of a romantic Hollywood movie where he envies the
people falling in love.
One day Wall-E finds a plant. That's unusual enough that he puts it into a
shoe and takes it home.
Then a powerful rocket lands nearby, and releases an ultramodern robot
equipped with a destructive ray that it uses on anything remotely
suspicious. Its name is Eve. Wall-E can't wait to make contact and
befriend her, even if initially she's only concerned about her mission.
He takes her to his home and tries to entertain her showing her the many
odd things he has accumulated over the years.
When he shows her the plant, she opens her belly, swallows the plant, and
then freezes as if dead. Wall-E is desperate. Truth is that she has just
accomplished her mission: to find life on Earth. And now she is waiting
for the rocket to come back. When the rocket takes her away, Wall-E
desperately clings to it, determined to go wherever she goes, and is
eventually taken to the spaceship Axiom.
Over the centuries humans have become fat blobs that can't even walk
anymore. They are carried by vehicles everywhere they want to go and
they are waited on by an army of robots.
Wall-E has never seen such a clean and modern place, and Wall-E looks old
dirty and primitive compared with the other robots.
Faithful to his Eve, he follows her to the office of the captain, who
immediately realizes the importance of her discovery. However, someone
steals the plant. The captain is relieved that the plant cannot be found
and therefore there is no need to activate the return of the spaceship to
Earth, and life can continue as it is.
However, Wall-E eventually finds and rescues the plant and delivers it to
Eve, who can then prove her mission to the captain. The captain is now
determined to activate the plan to return to Earth: the plant signifies
that the planet is ready for life again.
But the autopilot of the spaceship has received some terminal commands from
the corporation: life had become so unlivable that the corporation had
ordered the autopilot to ignore any command to return to Earth.
The captain has to confront a mutiny by the robots (fought by the
defective robots that Wall-E has accidentally released from the repair
ward)
and personally engage in a duel with the autopilot. His people see him
stand on his feet, for the first time in centuries.
The captain finally disables the autopilot and steers the spaceship back
towards Earth.
Wall-E has been severaly damaged during the fight, and, back on Earth,
Eve finally manages to restore him to life. Now it is Even who loves
Wall-E. Wall-E has lost his memory, but eventually love triumphs.
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