OMO At The Movies: "WALL-E"

Have you noticed how often I'm going to the pictures (aw! Quaint) these days? Frankly, it's all I'm doing. No, I'm not going to moan again about my social life being dull. But it IS dammit! Anyway, after a slightly false start where I drove us to the wrong Multiplex (!) I finally got around to seeing WALL-E last night, a film I'd been looking forward to since I read the premise last summer.

So, was it any good? Indupitubly, yes. I loved every moment, and rather obviously ended up crying. (I looked around at everyone else, and yes, I was the only one in tears. Again). I'm having a bad few weeks, ok.

I won't bore you with the story, but the whole thing is a rather touching love story set against the back-drop of an abandoned Earth, after humans have managed to dump so much waste it has become uninhabitable. The female of the middle-aged couple sitting behind us was heard to comment (about 15 minutes in): "I think there's a message in here somewhere". Sheesh, do you think Lady?

I found the first 30 minutes incredibly touching, as we're introduced to our unspeaking titular hero and his world purely by the visuals and his actions. Being an overly romantic, slightly melodramatic gay, I felt his loneliness keenly within my soul. Jeez. I saw The Boyf look at me, "You're going to cry in a minute aren't you?". Apparently I'm all too obvious.

The second part of the film takes on a more obvious action slant, a la Toy Story, to keep the kids hooked, and it never really reaches the intelligent and moving heights of the first part. As a whole the film's very well paced, and short, the result being that it all seems to be over a bit too quickly.

I found it interesting that the humans are less detailed visually and have less emotional depth than any of the robots, and WALL-E in particular is beautifully rendered. He passes off as more life-like than almost anything in Spiderman 3. Yeah, yeah, here I go about Spidey3 again. The animation is really beautiful, and is perfectly set off with the score, which consists of a melding of new music and songs from "Hello Dolly!".

Criticisms? Yeah, I didn't want it to end. Apart from that the whole "Man is killing Earth" thing is shoved in our face at every available opportunity, but then I mustn't forget this is a kids film first and foremost.

On the whole it reminded me of why as a child one of the most moving films I remember is "Silent Running", which is the adult version of WALL-E when all is said and done. I'm just amazed that there's been no mention of a remake, in this day and age.

In two weeks I really think I've seen the best two films of this year, and I'd be very surprised if anything else comes close to this and "The Dark Knight".