Movie awards season is silly season. Tunnel vision is the common perspective—people talk about fewer and fewer movies until the awards seem a foregone conclusion. We all believe that Wall.E is the only animated feature worth considering. We believe it is so good that discussion about the film centers on whether it should also be entered in the Best Picture categories. So with this much tunnel vision behind Wall.E, I’m probably wasting my breath to argue that the movie is not particularly good.
Both major themes in Wall.E are hackneyed. Humans so abused Earth that they left it a sterile junk yard and had to live in space. Have you heard anything like that before? But then the trite theme gets worse. Space-dwelling humans, who are obese, ignorant, and lack the bone structure to function in gravity, can find a green plant and re-establish life on earth. One plant does not sustain a population. OK, there’s a few other plants popping up among the garbage. Could they be contaminated? Inedible? And, come to think of it, is that all you need for life on earth? What will these people do for shelter? Clean water? Clean air? It gets ridiculous trying to talk about it.
The second element of Wall.E is the hackneyed love story between Wall.E and Eva. Boy sees girl—love at first sight. Girl is not interested, but she is slowly won over by good deeds. But, no, she rejects him, then quickly sees the error of her ways and acknowledges her love. But then the trite theme runs into more trouble. Wall.E, the mobile garbage compactor, is unable to show much romantic emotion. His replaceable metal and glass eyes are not expressive. Emotion is often shown by what is reflected in his glass plates. Not touching. Eva, the sleek white pod of a robot, has eyes which are blue dots on her screen face. She is unable to show romantic emotion, except in the last half of the film, her eyes take on various shapes that indicate emotions somewhat like emoticons on your computer. The film-makers try to counteract this serious shortcoming by building up the hand-holding motif. From a Hollywood musical on a salvaged television derives the idea that hand holding is love, and Wall.E and Eva do their best to interlock metal fingers. This might work for some people, but it seemed awkward to me.
Wall-E might be worth watching, but it is not in the league of Finding Nemo or The Incredibles. Actually, it is not as good as the other animation I’ve seen recently: Bolt—a movie with a great theme, wonderful characters, and heart-grabbing scenes.