Wall-E shows some robot love

In theaters Friday: Hancock
New on DVD: City of Men, Vantage Point

I’m not sure what Pixar is trying to pull with Wall-E, but I can easily picture a 10-year-old, preternatural Roger Ebert shaking his skinny fists at the screen and shouting, “Pixar is leaving its core audience behind!” That’s just the mental picture I got when I realized the adults in my screening were enjoying the film more than their kids. But what do you expect from a beautiful, dark and poignant film that is unafraid to have its first 20 minutes play like a silent movie, and the rest use minimal dialogue from its robot star, and multiple overt and subtextual references to 2001: A Space Odyssey? And those references make perfect sense because the whole narrative plays like Stanley Kubrick play-time.

We are first introduced to the titular janitor robot going through his routine of compacting trash and making giant garbage pyramids on the surface of an Earth long abandoned by humanity because it is a dustbowl and eco-disaster. Once one of a whole fleet of similar robots, Wall-E is the only one still functioning after 700 years. And a curious thing happened over the lonely centuries. Wall-E gained a personality, and perhaps even, a soul.

While Wall-E salvages curious treasures from the heap like lighters, eating utensils and his beloved copy of Hello Dolly, lazy Americans on board the interstellar luxury cruise ship Axiom send back a probe droid named EVE to find evidence of vegetation that might signal they can finally return to the planet. Now, EVE is like a high-flying iPhone compared to the rusty, gear-headed WALL-E, and being the romantic robot he is, he falls in love with her. So when she is recalled to the mothership, he hitches a ride on the rocket and is introduced to the remains of humanity aboard the Axiom.

And what lazy, robotic remains they are. Wall-E exhibits more recognizable traits of humanity than any of the ship’s human inhabitants, who are glued to their TVs and video phones, eat way too much and move and think way too little. His presence on board is like the perfect wrench thrown into the gears of the Axiom’s dystopian, Big Brother future. What surprised me is that the cynical comedy and adult themes of sacrifice didn’t let up once the action kicked in on the Axiom. Everyone from Jeff Garlin’s ship captain to a perfectionist floor-cleaning droid learns a little something from the little robot that could. In the end, Wall-E is as much of a movie for grown-ups as it is for kids, and if its 96% Rotten Tomatoes rating is any indication, this delicious collection of pixels could be a strong contender for Best Picture. Haters will complain that its green politics are too liberal or too pushy. But come on! Taking care of our environment the best we possibly can shouldn’t be a partisan issue. Last time I checked Democrats and Republicans don’t breathe separate air. We’re all in this together. Besides, the sequence when Wall-E and EVE zip and dance across the outer space sky together is exhilarating and, honestly, perfect.

Everyone’s talking about it, but here it is: Peter Travers’ early, and glowing review of The Dark Knight. Thanks, Pete, you’ve got me totally psyched with three weeks still to go!