Animated, Movie Reviews

Wall-E

Animated / Dystopian / Family 2008 / 98 min Rating: 9/10 Wall-E is a small robot with a big job – he has to tidy up Earth! 700 years earlier humans abandoned the planet to the garbage they’d covered it with and they've been living on a giant space ark ever since. Wall-E’s assignment, these last many centuries, has been to get on with the giant cleanup job. In a homage to the silent films of old, the open scene, twenty minutes long, is completely dialogue-free... and utterly charming. Wall-E is animated, sure, but it's so much more than just a children's movie. We watch the solitary Wall-E go about his task. Where once there were hundreds or maybe millions of other robots working alongside him, the years going by have left him as the only robot still on the job. That he's still running is due to his quiet brilliance – he might not talk, but he is a genius at finding the replacement parts he needs. So this little robot keeps stacking up cube after compacted cube of garbage, while also keeping the “treasures” he finds: a rubber ducky, an old boot, a kid’s sports trophy, and a VCR that'll still run old TV shows. There's much more I could share, but I don't want to ruin the surprise – this is such a creative, unique film! Cautions I will note that when it was released, this was positioned by producers as an eco-friendly film. The piles of garbage all over the Earth, and humans forced to flee to outer space, had many convinced this was a climate-catastrophist metaphor, a wagging finger shaking at anyone who doesn’t think the world is about to end in 12 years. But you don't have to watch it like you're Greta Thunberg or Al Gore. And unless someone is trying to use this to propagandize your kids, they don't have to watch it that way either. A more notable concern, if you are watching this with little kids, is there are moments when Wall-E is in peril – actually quite a few. But littles can be assured that it will all be good (and parents can minimize the impact by turning down the sound during the more dramatic moments). Conclusion So, yes, the producers tried to promote this to eco-activists, but their marketing doesn't change that this is first and foremost an innocent, beautiful romance between robots Wall-E and the jet-powered Eve. And for parents looking to pass on a lesson or two, here's a great one to consider from Rod Dreher:

"Wall-E contends that real life is hard, real life is struggle, and that we live most meaningfully not by avoiding pain and struggle, but by engaging it creatively, and sharing that struggle in community."

Or, to put it another way, when life hands you lemons, make the very best of lemonade. Or, to put it in more Christian terms, we know God brings hardship into our lives, but blessings too. And if we receive His blessings gratefully, instead of fixating on our hardships, who knows but what we can do with those blessings. To sum up, Wall-E ranks among the great classics, so if you somehow haven't already seen it, you've just got to! Check out the trailer below.