One day, a strange craft deposits a glossy white robot with crystal blue LED eyes on his planet, scaring the beejezus out of poor WALL-E. He learns that this lovely creature is named E.V.E. (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) and her directive is to locate life on Earth, since Earth has become so unlivable. Of course, WALL-E is completely fascinated by her and follows her around as she works toward her mission, making a fool of himself in the process. Eventually, E.V.E. becomes intrigued with WALL-E too and as they spend time together, E.V.E. discovers a living plant among WALL-E's treasures. Her directive fulfilled, E.V.E. will stop at nothing to get the plant back to the Axiom, a star ship where all of the humans have been orbiting for the last 700 years, awaiting Earth's cleanup - a trip that was only supposed to last 5 years. Smitten, WALL-E naturally follows E.V.E., although the trip is not an easy one.
On board the Axiom, the humans have grown fat and lazy, gelatinous caricatures of what they once were, spending their days floating on hover chairs all day long. They don't even speak to one another anymore, but instead rely on their headsets and virtual monitors for communication and well, for everything really. Their every need is met by the service bots that fill the ship, everything from beauty bots to powder their noses to maintenance bots to pick them up when they topple from their chairs. It seems that the Auto-Pilot for the Axiom has grown accustomed to life on the ship over the last 700 hundred years and when she realizes E.V.E. has brought back sustainable life from Earth, she sets in motion a plan to keep things status quo and declares E.V.E. and WALL-E rogue robots. The pair runs amuck on the ship, freeing defective robots as they go, working towards freeing the ship and the humans from the grip of the nefarious Auto-Pilot, so they can all ultimately return to Earth.
WALL-E is simply gorgeous to look at, as it is damn near photo-realistic. The first part of the movie is spent is quiet desolation on the Earth's surface and there is almost no dialogue whatsoever. However, with compelling and effective storytelling, you obviously don't need it (as we've seen in films like There Will Be Blood). Instead, WALL-E uses an amazing soundtrack and sound effects to get the point across. The creative minds at Pixar are well-known for their genius ability to breathe life into inanimate objects and they do just that in WALL-E. There were plenty of "awwwww" moments in the film and the characters truly come alive.
The WALL-E 3-Disc Special Edition comes jam-packed with special features for both the young and old. You've got two fabulous Pixar shorts, one that was shown in front of WALL-E at the theaters, Presto, and one made for the DVD called BURN-E, which stars a service robot on the Axiom. Good stuff indeed. There are two sets of deleted scenes, one set that is actually fleshed out and complete scenes that were cut from the film (which you don't normally get in animated films) and one set that are just storyboards with sound. I really enjoyed the completed deleted scenes, and the others were just ok, but it was nice that they were included. There's the standard audio commentary by Director Andrew Stanton, plus scads of featurettes on sound and technical design, the score of the movie, what goes into the making of a scene, etc. plus there is a whopping hour and a half long featurette on Pixar's origin that will be a huge bonus for fans of the company. That stuff is to placate the grown-ups who are into animation and such. There are a handful of B n L shorts, which are fun, plus a storybook called "Lots of Bots" where you can either read along or play along - nice for the young ones, and also a featurette that explains each bot found on the Axiom. My favorite of all would have to be WALL-E's Treasures and Trinkets, which is a collection of funny moments with WALL-E and the other characters. You can just tell the animators were having fun with this as the gang plays with various objects and we benefit from the amusement. Lots of fun. Lastly, there's a digital bonus copy of the movie included for your home computer or iPod.
While the whole eco-message was more than a little bit preachy (don't screw up the Earth, you idiot humans!), the movie is a true delight. Voiceovers are fantastic and moving, and the animation is breathtaking. Special features are truly special and there are tons of them to please all ages. WALL-E even comes in an eco-friendly package that isn't really optimal, but I have to high-five them for standing up for the environment and seeing it through with absolutely no plastic. If you have a high-def setup and Blu-ray, I highly recommend the Blu-ray over the DVD because it is simply stunning, but if you don't, you can't go wrong with this movie.
