Wall-E
I don’t care about the LA Film Critics Association, but I find it amazing enough that an animated movie (this one, heh) got the award for best movie. Of course I don’t think that Wall-E is the best animated movie (it’s Paprika!), but it comes pretty close. It’s so incredibly cute!
The main reason why Wall-E cannot possibly be the best animated movie I have ever seen is the fact that it tries to be a little too tree-huggingly for my taste. I don’t mind that children’s anime can be silly and naive, but I’m not a big fan of the attempt of dwelving into complex things in a very superficial way so that children can understand. It’s not that much of a big deal in Wall-E, but I can’t help thinking that the problems would only begin after people went back to Earth.
All this doesn’t matter though. Wall-E is probably the cutest love story Disney has ever made. On the one hand, both Wall-E and Eve are rather stereotypical and disney-like ‘humans’: Wall-E is a rather classical hero who shoes the marvels of his world to Eve and then goes on to save her, and Eve is a smart girl who first rejects him and then, after coming to like him, she keeps shaking her head (figuratively) for the crazy things he does. The constellation “weird, but interesting guy + down-to-earth damsel in distress and potential nagging housewife” is quite a classic, but if you look at it closely, Wall-E and Eve are probably the best characterized couple in the Disney world ever. While all the others are rather shapeless, Wall-E and Eve are pretty unique in my opinion and have displayed a lot of characterics and even development throughout the movie – even though they didn’t even speak!
I think the flashback in which Eve finally wakes up and remembers Wall-E is too tear-inducing. Wall-E~
It’s quite amazing how all the robot characters including Wall-E and Eve are able to get sympathy from the audience simply by the shape of their eyes and their movements. Why the hell do we have mouths anyways? Heh. It makes me wonder if there actually is academic research on what people consider to be cute.
All in all, I think that the praises for Wall-E are absolutely deserved, it is indeed the best Pixar movie up to date. My favorite american computer-animated movies would be these:
1. Shrek
2. Wall-E
3. Ice Age
4. Finding Nemo
5. Monster Inc.
6. Ratatouille
7. A Bug’s Life