I've always been a big fan of Pixar movies. I have seen every movie in the theaters on release and so far they have all been worthwhile experiences. Wall-E continues the trend of wonderful movies from Pixar. My favorite has always been Monsters, Inc. because I always felt that it had the best story overall. The Incredibles I feel is the most "movie-like" (Brad Bird's influence I believe) animated film out of Pixar. But Monster's story always came out on top for me.

And after seeing Wall-E, it still does.

Not that Wall-E has a bad storyline. It's one of the best so far, better than the last one. The one with the rat that I can never spell... Ratatouille, thank you internet.

Anyway, our story is about a small robot that's been left behind on Earth to clean up the mess created by man's mass consumerism of nearly anything that could be bought and sold. A lesson in the excesses we are prompted to involve ourselves in with all the commercials of the stuff we're supposed to buy. I found the lesson rather interesting. Not the part about us destroying our world before our eyes but realizing that this movie will create tons of waste due to the merchandising of the movie itself. Which is funny since the movie implores us this is bad but buying Wall-E merchandise must be OK though. I think maybe the Pixar people didn't read too much into that lesson. It's probably just a plot point to set the story and not a statement about the current affairs of man.

Every day Wall-E goes out to pick up junk and crush it into manageable cubes to build skyscrapers with. Later in the movie one of these skyscrapers falls down and the gamer in me was immediately thinking that has got to be the coolest physics engine ever!

But Wall-E has slowly developed a personality of sorts to where he collects things that interest him and even has a buddy in the form of some type of mutant roach that shows quite a bit of intelligence.

I immediately wanted one.

To describe Wall-E is a bit tough at first. He's your typical squarish body robot with what appear to be binoculars for eyes. He's very similar to Johnny Five from Short Circuit in appearance. Only smaller and not quite so lame. We're to assume he's the last of his kind because we see identical robots laying around that Wall-E actually strips down for spare parts. But what Wall-E really makes me think of becomes more obvious when he gets a visitor and you get to compare them.

Eve shows up with some secret mission that obviously involves her finding something since she flies around scanning random stuff looking for something. But it's top secret so she won't tell. To describe Eve is rather easy. She has a white glossy surface with rounded edges and a black screen for a face with animated eyes. She is obviously of the finest construction with no thought considered to the cost of the design. Her arms and head float off the body defying physics in some way and they can mold into her body to become a seamless whole. She has buttons that you can't see making them difficult to push unless you actually know where to push. If you do know where to push and do push them then they light up with colorful, attractive icons. She is over-engineered but has an attractive design. Plus she has a weapon five times more powerful than it needs to be and has no problem going on a highly destructive rampage for no real apparent reason.

Therefore, she was designed by an Apple engineer.

Which makes Wall-E a Windows PC. He is blocky and not very attractive to look at. He is built to perform a task and to perform it well. He is a workhorse that will work until the day he falls apart. But that point may never happen since if one part fails it can easily be replaced cheaply and quickly. Eye not working quite right? Just yank it out and plug in a new one.

If Eve ever broke down she would have to be returned to the store and looked over carefully by highly trained specialists who know what they're doing with the complicated design. When Wall-E has a problem you just order the part from the internet (no sales tax) and replace it yourself (no overpriced techs behind the counter). You don't even need a screwdriver since he apparently uses thumbscrews for everything.

Being the opposites that they are, Wall-E falls instantly in love with Eve. Personally, I think it's because for the last hundred years or so his only friend was a roach. Robot destroying aliens could have shown up and Wall-E would want to hang out to show off his collection of interesting human junk.

By the way, one thing that threw me off was the fact this movie actually has real people in it. An old movie plus video of people talking about the cleanup that Wall-E is involved in. As far as I can remember this is the first time real people have been shown in a Pixar film. Personally I think it was a mistake and very distracting. Especially later when the animated people appear and they in no way look realistic. I didn't mind the non-realistic art style of the people since I like Pixar's tendency to not try for human realism. But it was just weird seeing real people in the film.

Eve eventually finds the secret thing that she was looking for and shuts down to wait for pickup. This leads into Wall-E to hitch a ride to where the humans are now living to follow Eve. In this world the humans let robots do all the work and the people have gotten fat and lazy. I didn't quite understand the liner in space bit because who's paying for all that? The people don't seem to really work yet they apparently have to buy stuff to live. We know this because it was mentioned that they would get something for free which suggests they buy everything else.

From this point forward is Wall-E's amusing adventure in this new world as he disrupts almost everything around him. His interactions with the other robots are amusing and some of them are laugh out loud funny. I particularly liked the out-of-control massaging robot's big scene. You'll see what I mean.

I'm not going to say more because I like Pixar and I think you should go see the movie to learn what happens. In other words, give Pixar money to support their no characters randomly breaking out into song animated films that also happen to be really good movies. It has a touching yet rather predictable ending but it is still a good movie.

Take your kids and buy some merchandise even though that might trash the planet so that maybe somebody would need to build a real Wall-E sometime in the future.

We did.