Wall-E is a robot. His mission: to compact and stack the trash left over by humans who have since vacated Earth in search of greener pastures, er, planets. From what we can tell, there were once a great many Wall-E units clearing the Earth, but by now, about 700 years later, he is the only one left. We watch him as he encounters things from our past, such as twinkies and Rubik's cubes, always wondering about their use and function and storing them as treasures in his little home (not unlike Ariel had done in The Little Mermaid). For the first 30 minutes or so of the film, Wall-E and his little pet cockroach, are the only characters that we encounter, and there is absolutely no dialog (which is quite fascinating). Things change, however, when a ship approaches Earth and a very futuristic-looking robot enters the scene. Wall-E's own natural curiosity and his own personal longing for companionship drive him to learn more about this new robot, whom we come to know as Eve. Thus begins the adventure upon which Wall-E would travel to the ends of the universe for his beloved Eve.

There is much to love about Wall-E. His curiosity, mannerisms, and loyalty are very human-like. In fact, Wall-E is more "human" than the humans in the movie who have become fat, lazy slobs. He looks like a rip-off from the 80's movie, Short Circuit, but it is his sense of longing and belonging that endear us to him and allow him to carry us through the film.

What I loved most about this movie was not the story or the animation...it was the fact that there is very little dialog. In fact, as I mentioned before, there is absolutely NO dialog for the first part of the movie. The rest of the movie goes something like...

	Eve:     Wall-E.
	Wall-E:  Eve.
	Wall-E:  Eve.
	Eve:     Wall-E.
	Captain: Wall-E.
	Wall-E:  Eve.
	Crowd:   Wall-E!
	Eve:     Wall-E!
	Wall-E:  Eve!

All joking aside, however, I am sincerely impressed that such a story could be told not through dialog but through animation, action, and robots. On that last point, how remarkable is it that a couple of robots could tug at our heartstrings?

Unfortunately, for me, there were just a couple of things that detracted from the movie. First of all, I did not like the humans. They were much too cartoonish when almost everything else in the film is so life-like. Secondly, I felt that I was being preached to a bit too much. I'm all for greening up the Earth and for exercising, but I don't need a 2-hour sermon on it. This kind of made me want to stop paying attention and was similar to how I felt while watching March of the Penguins.

In the end, these were just minor detractions and on the whole I quite enjoyed watching these anthropomorphic machines teach us all how to be just a bit more human.

Wall-E is for me!