WALL·E

Every year Pixar releases a new movie, and every year I am amazed that they continue their unblemished streak of good films. From Toy Story up through Ratatouille I have not been let down by these wizards of storytelling. They understand the potential the medium of film has to be magical, something so few films attempt to achieve. Yes, WALL·E is another home run from Pixar, but they have taken a bold leap forward this time. This new venture leaves all past Pixar films in its dust, and it is in large part because they've created a fully realized and utterly magical world on a scale the likes of which we've rarely even glimpsed before on the big screen.

From the first time I heard about the concept of WALL·E, I was excited. This had potential to be something new, something daring. Instead of relying on a celebrity voice to bring WALL·E to life, Pixar instead turned to sound engineer Ben Burtt to create the film's hero (as well as the many minor characters that populate the film's universe). This gamble pays off brilliantly. WALL·E, in spite of not being able to really speak, is more alive and beautifully nuanced than any character I've seen this year. The heartfelt sighs, the frustrated groans, the curious chirps - all convey so much by saying so little. The rest of the cast is equally impressive, as they each have a distinct personality of their own. If Burtt doesn't win the Oscar for sound design this year, it will be a huge disappointment.

The whole premise of the film lends itself to a fascinating and timely commentary on the current state of our planet. WALL·E is the last remaining robot on Earth, his job to clean up the enormous mess mankind left behind when they shipped off to the stars. It's quietly unsettling to see WALL·E roaming around piles of trash that rival the nearby skyscrapers in size. Had the film spent its entirety simply exploring this world, it would have made for a riveting experience. We learn so much about the humans of the film simply through the garbage WALL·E finds and the remains of the city he inhabits. It makes last year's I Am Legend look tame by comparison.

With the eventual arrival of EVE, the true heart of the film emerges. WALL·E has learned about love through an old copy of Hello Dolly on VHS, and he quickly falls hard for the first robot he's encountered in centuries. The love story between the two could have come off as so offputting, seeing as they're robots, but it's handled with such delicacy and care that you find yourself really hopeful for these two. Never have I wanted to see two characters simply hold hands so badly. When a love story is done right, it is often the most involving story a film can have for me personally, and this film hits all the right notes with grace and style.

The film follows these two lovebirds into space, and it eventually takes us to the starship containing the remains of human civilization. I won't give too much away, but it is clear that this is the film Mike Judge had in mind when he made Idiocracy a few years back. It's both hilarious to see what we've become hundreds of years from now, but also a bit disturbing. Jeff Garlin does a great job as the main human role in the film, although they do saddle him with the obligatory revelation scene in which its hammered home that we need to take care of our planet. But that's a minor quibble with an otherwise flawlessly handled story.

Pixar has truly stepped up their game in a major way with WALL·E. I fell head over heels in love with the film, its story, and its wonderful assortment of characters. But I fell hardest for WALL·E himself. This is truly a hero for our times, and one that will likely enter into the pantheon of great animated characters. When a film of such true quality comes along during a dearth of great films, it is something to be cherished, and that's exactly what I will be doing with WALL·E for a great long time.

Catching Up: Mini Reviews

Ah, summer. We wade through months of uninteresting movies to get here, only to be reminded that the majority of summer movies suck. This year was worse than normal, as there was nearly no redeemable movies all winter or spring. Thankfully we already got Iron Man and Indiana Jones, because without them this summer would be shaping up to be the most painful in recent years. These mini reviews range from mediocre to downright painful. Let's hope WALL-E can pick the pace back up next week.

Kung Fu Panda

I have a bias against the films of Dreamworks Animation. They rely too much on pop culture references and seem content aiming for the middle, never trying to be something special or new. I was expecting the same thing here, but was pleasantly surprised. While not up to the Pixar high standard, this is the closest Dreamworks has come to making a genuinely good animation. It focuses on characters and story over pop culture jokes, and the animation is actually artistic for a change, notably the opening sequence. That said, I felt it treaded a little too much on familiar waters, and the supporting characters were almost non-entities (I think Jackie Chan had one line the whole movie, and I'm pretty sure Lucy Liu didn't say anything, though she must have or they wouldn't give her a credit). I also have a bit of a problem with an animated kung fu movie, as that seems to go against the whole point of making a kung fu movie. That said, this is the first step down a path of respectability for Dreamworks. If they can improve upon this one, they may yet overcome my bias.




The Incredible Hulk

Count me among the many who disliked Ang Lee's 2003 take on the Marvel character. It was long, dull, and uneventful. This reboot solves many of the problems of the original, but in doing so creates all new ones. It starts off with a great opening credits summary of what has happened so far, then follows that up with Bruce Banner in South America trying to overcome his curse. For the first twenty minutes I thought this might be a really good movie, but as soon as Banner heads back to America, it becomes another mindless action spectacle with no characterization, no plot, and entirely CG fight scenes. By the end I felt overloaded. I fear the Hulk may just be one of those comic book characters that doesn't work on the big screen, no matter how much producers seem to think he belongs there. He is just as uninteresting a character here as he was in the last film. Perhaps he'll work better as a secondary character in the proposed Avengers film Marvel is working on.




You Don't Mess With the Zohan

I can't believe Adam Sandler is still as popular now as he was a decade ago. That's not meant to be a knock against the man - most comedians have a very short shelf life. A Bill Murray is far less common than a Chevy Chase. Yet he continues to churn out hit comedies every summer, occasionally even taking the time to fit in a drama here and there. I was a huge Sandler fan back in his early days, and would honestly consider Happy Gilmore to be among the ten funniest films I've ever seen. But the quality in these things have trended downwards over the years, and this one is just dull. By far the best part of the film is John Turturro as The Phantom, an over the top Palestinian terrorist. Too bad he's not in more of the film. The whole hairdresser angle is not funny and often tedious, and Rob Schneider is once again playing an unfunny stereotype. The jokes in Sandler's films are less and less funny each outing, and at some point Sandler is going to lose too much of his fan base to continue making these kinds of movies. It may not happen anytime soon, but it will happen one day, and I sincerely hope that by that point he has carved out enough of a niche as a dramatic actor that he can sustain himself in a new arena. I really like the guy, and he does have some great acting chops (Punch Drunk Love was a minor revelation), so I hope he can grow beyond films like Zohan one day.




The Happening

Has Shyamalan really run so completely out of ideas that he could think of no better title than The Happening? It's especially ironic because quite the opposite happens, actually. I've stuck with Shyamalan far longer than most, even feeling that The Village was a worthwhile product. But what made his last few films overcome their shortcomings was his wonderful and nuanced direction. He had a mastery of the camera that you can really only find in a Hitchcock or Spielberg film. That is completely missing here. There is no sense of urgency or dread, no matter how many times he cuts to a menacing tree or wind. It almost feels like a parody of his past works. And the characters are atrocious. I honestly couldn't care less if they all died. Part of this is due to the writing, but it's largely because of the awful acting on display. Mark Wahlberg delivers every line so insincerely that when one woman falsely accuses him of trying to kill her, his response of "Nooo, of course I'm not" makes him sound like he's lying to her, which isn't supposed to be the case. This has been touted as Shyamalan's first R rated film, and that R rating is only used to prop up a boring film. It seems that he could think of nothing exciting or dramatic to put on the screen this time around, so he relied solely on gratuitous violence to keep us watching. The old Shyamalan could get us excited simply by using his camera in a daring way. The new Shyamalan would rather take the easy and less fruitful route.