Otherwise the crowds with the pitchforks and torches gathering around the other negative reviews at Rotten Tomatoes will come for you too.

PS--You're wrong, by the way.

Wait, that was a negative review? I'd call it 'mixed'.

In any case, the point of being a critic is that you're supposed to be critical. "Yah this movie is great" wouldn't make for a very interesting review.

-Jeremy

Or maybe upon watching it the Five Hundredth time with my son, it started to...

Reading the review confirmed my opinion of the trailer -- when WALL-E is by himself (itself?) the feeling of desolation approaches "On The Beach" levels. Once he gets into space, it seems more like an action movie. Nonetheless, I am looking forward to seeing the movie later this week.

It's a shame WALL-E is (necessarily and with understanding) tied into the major studio commandment to generate tremendous profits -- it has no choice but to sacrifice the purity and (yes) poetry of the first act towards keeping the children and adults bouncy past the feel-good ending. Perhaps an argument could be made to generate enough extra footage to create two versions -- one with the courage to see the first half's vision complete to the end, and another for the kids and for marketing the toys. The former wouldn't be expected to generate as much income as conversation.

It is bonded and branded with Disney.

The movies are just made to make money and show off CGI skills. The team does both.

I am interested in goals other than theirs.

It's about the machine.

It will be interesting, I confess, to see how they place this one. But I do think Stephanie is amongst the reviewers who don't see the forest for the variety of trees: there is a unified vision here, and not everyone saw it. It is an ironic vision, but not bitterly so, because it is also redemptive. Those who don't do multivalence very well are going to think it's disjointed as a result.

BTW--the most melancholy animated movie ever was actually the "Valse Triste" segment of Allegro non Troppo.

Cars has lots of soul, I really didn't understand that comment in the review at all. My son is 25, I bought that movie for me. Maybe it's because I'm a car guy, a retired biker, or maybe because my dad loved the backroads and took the family on many side trips through places that are now bypassed by the interstates. I can't say, but I found Cars a wonderful expression of what makes road trips so much fun. The only thing missing: why no motorcycles? A Harley named Earl would have been perfect for Radiator Springs.

.. a funny interview with the writer/director in the Globe and Mail. There's a long awkward pause when the interviewer asks how the movie's apparent message clashes with the fact that there are millions of plastic Wall-E's being sold in Happy Meals and tossed out car windows:

G&M: This film has a big ecological message -

Andrew Stanton: Actually, no.

G&M: No? The world of the future is overflowing with garbage.

AS: Yeah, well I did that for other reasons. I just went with logic. I had no eco thing to push. I had to have everybody leave Earth, because I wanted the last robot on Earth. And then I needed something very visual, that made him feel like he was the lowest on the totem pole, that wouldn't require any dialogue to understand it. Trash is very get-able. One, you don't have to explain it - people see too much of it and they get it. And then second, it has all those human artifacts in it, so it allowed him to show through actions that he's interested in humanity.

G&M: Inevitably, someone will point out that -

AS: Sure, that's fine! But I'm not going to stand there and go, "That's what I was trying to do."

G&M: But you're depicting a future world cluttered with junk, and meanwhile there will be tons of WALL-E-generated toys, lunch boxes, T-shirts and candy wrappers.

AS: Possibly. Possibly. [An awkward, fixed-look pause passes]. I was just trying to make the best film I could.

G&M: Um, okay.

It MUST be about the environment. Gore Commands you !!!!!!!

Maybe I'm hopelessly out of touch, but I was thinking about Hello Dolly just before I read this review. Come on, it's timeless. Even Wall-E recognizes that.

Just saw the film--and loved it. Stanton can protest all he wants--the criticism of corporations and our own laziness is blatant and biting. And the melancholy is palpable, as Zacharek says. I was fine with the happy ending--it's a kids movie, and the humans earn their new perspective...ok, not completely, but somewhat.

Of course, when we bought our tickets, each child got a plastic wrapped rubber-encased watch and set of cards hyping the next animated film. One watch stopped working before we even left the theatre. So while we were watching the film and absorbing the message that our careless creation of waste is killing us and the planet, we were creating waste. Ugh.

So while we were watching the film and absorbing the message that our careless creation of waste is killing us and the planet, we were creating waste. Ugh.

Or perhaps, while you were creating waste, you were absorbing a message that undercuts the creation of waste. The sword cuts both ways. To get a message with anti-mass media undertones (amongst a dozen other things) out, one must by necessity employ the mass media. Ideological purity means abandoning any hope of actually making a difference. Welcome to Paradox 101.

It's a parable for a lot of things. To wit: is Disney co-opting Pixar's sould with its marketing machine, or the other way around? I suspect when Disney bought Pixar, it unwittingly planted the seeds of its own change. Time will tell.

I hope you're right. I do think that corporate America is getting the message--oh so painfully slowly--but I suppose my cynicism comes from my fear that it's so slowly that we'll destroy what's worth saving before we ever change in any fundamental way.

I think it's excellent that the movie exists, but what does it say about the corporate mindset that Stanton either can't openly discuss the film's politics, or is so schizophrenic that his managerial self doesn't see what his artistic self is doing?

Think about how revolutionary things *could* have been if Disney included some biodegradable piece of crap! I mean, I don't expect us to just stop marketing or giving stuff away, but it was an opportunity that seems lost.