Review by Brian Tallerico

There's almost always something negative that can be said about a movie. Even some of the best in Hollywood history were "a bit too long" or had a performance or two that didn't totally work. Show me a classic, I'll show you something wrong with it. I’m a critic. It’s what I do. However, and I know this sounds like ridiculous hyperbole, I honestly can't think of a single, solitary, negative thing to say about Wall-E. It's the kind of film that could destroy friendships because if you're unlucky enough to know somebody who doesn't like it, you might have to lose their phone number. The color of their sky is different than ours. Not only the best film of the year, but one of the best films of the last several, Wall-E is an absolute masterpiece, a visual and thematic tapestry that will instantly become a part of your internal movie database of film favorites. It's a flawless and ambitious home run that is more than a kid's movie, more than a sci-fi flick, and more than a summer blockbuster. I'm reminded of something a friend said on his way out of Return of the King - "It's better than we deserve."

By now, most of the free world is well-aware of who Wall-E is, so let me speak to the moviegoers who might be concerned about the dramatic potential of a character who speaks in beeps and boops. From the very first reel of Wall-E, you won't just feel what this character is going through, you'll totally fall for him. I could watch Wall-E for days. Like a lot of us (okay, maybe just me), he's a romantic collector. Poor Wall-E is the last robot on an Earth that's been abandoned by the human race. He's been left behind to clean-up our mess, turning the things we discarded into treasures and longing for any sort of companionship. He finds exactly that in EVE, another robot sent to Earth on a very different mission. The joys of writer/director Andrew Stanton's beautiful film are too many to count and should be experienced fresh, so I'll stop the plot recap here, but I will say that he's crafted such a beautiful story about the power of one heart to change an entire universe that the power of what he's done didn't even hit me until it was over. When he puts the final emotional piece in the puzzle, it's one that will stand the test of screenwriting time. (Impress your office-mates and tell them that you know the Best Original Screenplay winner in next year's Oscar Pool now. This one's gonna be hard to beat.)

Wall-E works for a number of reasons, but the biggest might be that it was clearly made by people who love movies. Take the emotions that stirred in your soul after you saw Star Wars, Alien, 2001, Close Encounters, and a cheesy musical or two, and then filter them through the Pixar machine that made Toy Story and The Incredibles. Wall-E is the product of romantic sci-fi fans, who happen to be visual and storytelling geniuses. A number of people have asked me if I think Wall-E is the best Pixar film yet (a title that I would have given to Finding Nemo before, although I truly love both Toy Storys, Ratatouille, and The Incredibles, as well). It's still a tough, tough call - I've been saying is that it's too soon to tell if it's "the best" (I've seen the other ones 4-5 times a piece) - but I'm pretty sure it's the one I'll have seen the most by the time I’ve shuffled off this mortal coil. Wall-E will forever be a part of my life, an experience that I'll pass down from generation to generation and from friend to friend. We'll be lucky if we see another one like it any time soon.

Rating: FOUR BONES

Release Date: June 27th, 2008

Rating: G

Starring: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, and Sigourney Weaver

Director: Andrew Stanton

Writer: Andrew Stanton