WALL-E Finds Sorely Needed Magic in Humanity

By Katey Rich

How many neat things are there about being human? Let Pixar count the ways. We have the ability to create things like Rubik's cubes, refrigerators, sporks and bras. We can sing and dance and wave our hats like the specimens on display in Hello, Dolly! We can love, understand and even talk to a creature like WALL-E, a tiny robot with a box for a torso and binoculars for eyes. And, perhaps most importantly, there are a few geniuses among us who can tie ideas like this into a stunning, emotional and life-affirming movie like WALL-E.

There's no real need for me to join the chorus of praise for WALL-E, which opens today in the kind of hail of accolades that we last saw... well, when Pixar's last film, Ratatouille, came out a year ago. It's thrilling that Pixar can continue such a winning streak, melting the most cynical critic's heart and opening our eyes all over again to what animation can be. Just reading the endless good reviews puts the same warm feeling in my heart that I had watching WALL-E and his lady love, EVE, dance a strange ballet among the stars.

After seeing Wanted on Monday, a movie that revels in hating most everything about everyday people, I desperately needed WALL-E to reaffirm my faith that there is something good about being human, something worth saving even when the population as a whole doesn't give you a whole lot to appreciate. And, sure enough, like the people in the film who interact with the beeping robot, the dark scales were lifted from my eyes thanks to WALL-E. It's hard to decide what is the most wondrous: a nation of critics throwing up their hands in delight over a movie meant for children, a movie meant for children that makes adults tear up in joy, or the very people who made this movie to begin with.

Wanted has its own pleasures, in the good old American tradition of watching people kill others as a kind of catharsis for whatever is plaguing our lives. But WALL-E, which isn't afraid to look at the troublesome aspects of our current way of life, finds a way for you to forgive others rather than kill them, in a manner that's never overly sentimental or forced. When one character marvels over all the wonders that Earth can hold-- square dances! the ocean!-- no one can resist his enthusiasm. Going to see WALL-E may involve sitting in a dark room, but it's all about opening your eyes to what's outside it. At the end you won't need WALL-E's binocular eyes to see the beauty he found in us.