Wall-E

**** Stars

I think Pixar is one of the only studios that can be safely marked with originality. With Wall-E being its eventual ninth hit in a row, this marks the culmination of a time where an animated film needs to be nominated for best picture. Wall-E is a perfect film to hold that crown. This is the best film so far this year.

The film’s opening thirty minutes is one of the most visually astounding things cinema has to offer. Wall-E, also known as a Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class is a machine made to clean up human garbage. After life on earth is unsustainable, he is left alone for seven-hundred years. To stay busy, he continues to collect garbage and dream of once seeing something alive again. He watches re-runs of Hello Dolly and stays sane by hanging out with his insect buddy. The opening plays like science fiction paranoia. Even though Wall-E is equipped with a positronic brain, could you imagine being alone for seven-hundred years? I guess immortality isn't as great as everyone says it could be.

However, after all those years, Wall-E is met by another robot named Eve. She is the most beautiful thing Wall-E has ever seen. When they get acquainted through interpersonal robot communication (never thought I'd put that in a sentence) she has discovered that this robot has found the key to Earth's rehabilitation. Wall-E has found life. Life in a small plant found in garbage. She is forced to take it and go into hibernation until the plant is safe back at her mothership. Wall-E is so destined to be with her that he hitches a ride on the back of the ship. He has no idea what is going on, but the power of love has taken over his circuit boards. When they reach the ship, a love story emerges between Wall-E and Eve as they also try and save planet earth from the machines that were created to protect both them and the humans who built them.

What's interesting is director Andrew Stanton’s (Finding Nemo) decision to install real life humans inside the story. Fred Willard plays the CEO of the BnL (Buy n' Large) corporation. His company seven-hundred years prior seemed to have taken over earth while soon destroying it in the process. This is another vision as to the potential apocalyptic downfall of our world. It works because this is does not feel like a lecture. This is a science fiction story with a twist of love. What could be more satisfying to the film lover in all of us? This has just as much magic as E.T did twenty-six years ago. Wall-E is a majestic piece of cinema, one as exuberant as our imagination can possibly render.

Critics and audiences alike will eventually have to make a top ten list of the greatest Pixar films of all time, given that out of the nine they have created (Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monster's Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, and now Wall-E) five of them are already masterpieces while others are strenuously close. Wall-E marks an already unprecedented high for Pixar. After this film was over, I wanted to pack up my suitcase and head off to Disney World. That's how much this film means to the inner child in me.