Wall*E is a last, lonely robot stacking junk skyscraper-high.  He’s the final remnant of a workforce designed to clean up the planet whilst us lazy humans push off on a 5-year cruise,  apparently to boldly go and have fun.

A sleek and sexy new probe robot (Eve) comes to town and knocks our hero of his feet (at least twice).  She discovers that he’s inadvertently collected something rather valuable while haphazardly picking through the waste heaps,  and has to shoot back to home base.

Various dumb robots and other evil robots (shades of Disney’s Black Hole) and a pet cockroach make life extremely difficult,  and rather funny throughout – and us roly-poly humans eventually wake up and smell the coffee.

Considering that there’s no talking for a goodly chunk of the film,  and our two main characters don’t have any recognisable human features,  the humour in this film is a tribute to Stellar class animation.  You can feel the moods – all the way from being in deep trouble with the missus,  to nervously stealing that first kiss.  And I swear I’ve never seen a robot shuffle its feet before.

Sigourney Weaver is the voice of the main ship’s computer – a little like Galaxy Quest.  John Ratzenberger (Cheers) is a passing human.

There’s a fairly predictable happy-ever-after ending,  but the detail that went into the film will repay at least one more viewing.  The kids will enjoy this,  and Sci-Fi inclined parents will love the end of the world atmosphere. 

There weren’t any sub-texts for the grownups that I caught the first time through,  so you’ll just have to watch it for the plot;  which has a couple of interesting switches to keep you guessing.

Overall I’d say a good watch for Pixar,  and for writer/ director (and long-time Pixar person) Andrew Stanton.  Andrew has a new film out in a few years - John Carter of Mars (2012) something based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs stories.  We’ll have to see whether this is a live-action or a computer animation closer to the time.

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