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Friday, February 27, 2009

Wall-E

I have to admit, I'm not sure why this did not entirely click with me. I'm successful in suspending my disbelief fairly often in movies, and just as much so with animated films. There was something about the "love story" of this film that really didn't stick until about 3/4 of the way through, and even then, it's on thin ice. The idea of robot love just doesn't compute. However, that said - I thought it was a good film. The social commentary Disney/Pixar is making about our society is surprisingly cutting, especially coming from Disney. I mean, isn't this a company that sells video games and has had problems with the waste from their theme parks before? Was it me or weren't they in trouble for the location of one of their newer theme parks a while back? The idea that even Disney thinks we, the human race, is destined to become obese computer reliant brainless drones worries me. Disney making casual references to 2001 and Hal worries me also. It was a more dire prediction of our future than some of the dystopian movies I've seen. I found the opening scenes of the immense piles of trash to be fairly upsetting actually, especially in these times of recycling. I've personally recently felt the pains of non-recycling and hate it. I just moved from an area where recycling was mandated to one where they have a compacter. It scares me and I feel bad for not recycling and I still rinse out all my recyclables, out of habit. I really found those early scenes quite scary, and it's never resolved. What happened to the trash? It's never explained. Instead we are presented with a future scenario that's grim, but just the background setting to a movie about a robot - Wall-E, who meets another robot & falls in love. Which, is just silly. I mean, I'm a big ole romantic, as big as they come, but really? There was just something about Wall-E falling in love and being such a schmaltz that it felt like it was being pushed, from second one. Music from "hello Dolly" being constantly played, and if you aren't familiar with "Hello Dolly" you may find like I did, it just didn't do it for me. I think that ripping off a musical to glean your own fans is cheap, make your own musical numbers, write your own love songs, we don't need more re-makes.
It did have it's comical good moments, a lot of the humor was physical and really good.
Oh, and before I forget, I hate cockroaches. With a passion. The are the reason I don't miss Az. They scare the bejeezus out of me and disturb me beyond belief. However, I have to admit, only Disney could make a cockroach cute. I felt for the damn thing. I even worried about it's health. So, although my heartstrings weren't consistently being pulled, they were successfully pulled a number of times. It was overall a decent film, but not a re-renter for me.

However, the best thing about the disc we rented from Netflix, was that Pixar included a short "Presto". Rent it, watch it with those you love. Laugh. Really Hard.

I haven't laughed that hard in at least a couple months. I couldn't breathe and didn't care if I did, it was hilarious and beautiful and the funniest thing Pixar has ever done. I can't praise it enough. My sides hurt thinking about it. Seriously, I'd pay good money to own that short. It was funny shit.

All in all I was less impressed with Wall-E and blown away by Presto.

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