WALL·E
Last night, I went with a few friends to see WALL·E, a movie that I had been really excited to see over the past couple of weeks or so. I had really high expectations, especially after learning of the impeccably high ranking that the film currently holds on IMDb, but I have to say that I left the theater feeling kind of disappointed.
I suppose that my biggest gripe with the film was that some of its plot elements took way too long to be fully fleshed out or explained, and trying to understand them only served to distract me from the film making new advancements to the story that were going on at the same time. A good example of this can be seen in the character of EVE. Once she landed on earth and began both scanning everything and blasting moving objects with her gun, I immediately wanted to know what her purpose or mission was. Unfortunately, thanks to the movie's shaky pacing and "we'll explain all of that stuff later" mentality, it isn't until EVE and WALL·E arrive at the Axiom - more than half an hour later into the film - that we are finally told that the EVE robots are sent to search for sustainable life for the purpose of determining whether or not the earth can be inhabited by humans again. Wonderful, now I finally know the main purpose of one of the main characters of the film, long after she has made her first appearance, had her personality established, and had a romance subplot involving her and the other main character of the film brought about.
Another scene that made no sense to me was the scene in which EVE, still in her comatose "plant housing" mode, is checked by the captain for the plant that will initiate the humans' journey back to earth. How in the hell did EVE manage to lose it if it was stored inside of her the entire time? It wasn't until a good 20 or so minutes later that we learn that the GO-4 robot secretly had the plant, which is a plot advancement that I only learned after reading the plot synopsis on Wikipedia. Myself and two of the people that I saw the movie with were unable to see when, where, and how the GO-4 bot got the plant; we simply assumed that WALL·E somehow had it. One of my friends tells me that GO-4 taking the plant from EVE is never actually shown, which I think is really dumb. How could anyone have gotten the plant from EVE when it was locked inside of her? And, just like the plot flaw that I brought up in the above paragraph, the movie moved on and kept advancing the story without us knowing where the hell the plot was. It was difficult for me to stay focused on the scene in which WALL·E and EVE escape from the robot repair room when I simply wanted closure on where the plant was and who took it. Another example of how much I disliked the pacing of this film.
After WALL·E barely saves himself and the plant from certain doom from the self-destructing escape pod, we get a fairly poignant and charming scene in which EVE sees that WALL·E is damaged and almost completely incapable of moving due to his need for a new hardware piece. Less than five minutes later, however, we see him running around as usual and being his typical funny self, all until he uses his body to jam the holo-detector that the plant is to be placed on. What the hell?
Oh, and here's another weird thing about the film that I didn't notice myself, but was brought up on LUElinks last night. During the first half hour or so of the film, we routinely see WALL·E narrowly avoid those 250 MPH dust storms that frequently brutalize the surroundings. How the hell did the humans manage to deal with those once they returned to the planet? Did a magical wizard help out or something? Keep in mind that at this point, the entire human race is still morbidly obese and largely relies on floating chairs to get from point A to point B.
I try not to think too far into things when I critique movies, mainly because I like movies a lot and try to be as entertained as much as possible when I view them. Some guy on LUElinks said that the biggest flaw of WALL·E is its lack of character development, which I think is bullshit. Not every movie needs its characters to drastically evolve from the start of the film to the finish, especially not a movie like this one. If you desperately need to see a cleaning robot go through a noticeable change of personality over a period of 100 minutes in order to be entertained, then I really don't know what to say. My big complaint simply lies in the film introducing an character, subplot, or storyline advancement and taking forever to fully resolve or explain it, all while throwing new storyline advancements at you while you're trying to figure out the old, unexplained one at the same time.
I'd definitely recommend WALL·E to almost anyone, if for no other reason than because everyone seems to herald it as the second coming of Christ in movie form, but I'm not so sure that I'd give it a second viewing. I probably will though, and hopefully I'll enjoy it more with the predisposed knowledge of how the characters and story work.
I suppose that my biggest gripe with the film was that some of its plot elements took way too long to be fully fleshed out or explained, and trying to understand them only served to distract me from the film making new advancements to the story that were going on at the same time. A good example of this can be seen in the character of EVE. Once she landed on earth and began both scanning everything and blasting moving objects with her gun, I immediately wanted to know what her purpose or mission was. Unfortunately, thanks to the movie's shaky pacing and "we'll explain all of that stuff later" mentality, it isn't until EVE and WALL·E arrive at the Axiom - more than half an hour later into the film - that we are finally told that the EVE robots are sent to search for sustainable life for the purpose of determining whether or not the earth can be inhabited by humans again. Wonderful, now I finally know the main purpose of one of the main characters of the film, long after she has made her first appearance, had her personality established, and had a romance subplot involving her and the other main character of the film brought about.
Another scene that made no sense to me was the scene in which EVE, still in her comatose "plant housing" mode, is checked by the captain for the plant that will initiate the humans' journey back to earth. How in the hell did EVE manage to lose it if it was stored inside of her the entire time? It wasn't until a good 20 or so minutes later that we learn that the GO-4 robot secretly had the plant, which is a plot advancement that I only learned after reading the plot synopsis on Wikipedia. Myself and two of the people that I saw the movie with were unable to see when, where, and how the GO-4 bot got the plant; we simply assumed that WALL·E somehow had it. One of my friends tells me that GO-4 taking the plant from EVE is never actually shown, which I think is really dumb. How could anyone have gotten the plant from EVE when it was locked inside of her? And, just like the plot flaw that I brought up in the above paragraph, the movie moved on and kept advancing the story without us knowing where the hell the plot was. It was difficult for me to stay focused on the scene in which WALL·E and EVE escape from the robot repair room when I simply wanted closure on where the plant was and who took it. Another example of how much I disliked the pacing of this film.
After WALL·E barely saves himself and the plant from certain doom from the self-destructing escape pod, we get a fairly poignant and charming scene in which EVE sees that WALL·E is damaged and almost completely incapable of moving due to his need for a new hardware piece. Less than five minutes later, however, we see him running around as usual and being his typical funny self, all until he uses his body to jam the holo-detector that the plant is to be placed on. What the hell?
Oh, and here's another weird thing about the film that I didn't notice myself, but was brought up on LUElinks last night. During the first half hour or so of the film, we routinely see WALL·E narrowly avoid those 250 MPH dust storms that frequently brutalize the surroundings. How the hell did the humans manage to deal with those once they returned to the planet? Did a magical wizard help out or something? Keep in mind that at this point, the entire human race is still morbidly obese and largely relies on floating chairs to get from point A to point B.
I try not to think too far into things when I critique movies, mainly because I like movies a lot and try to be as entertained as much as possible when I view them. Some guy on LUElinks said that the biggest flaw of WALL·E is its lack of character development, which I think is bullshit. Not every movie needs its characters to drastically evolve from the start of the film to the finish, especially not a movie like this one. If you desperately need to see a cleaning robot go through a noticeable change of personality over a period of 100 minutes in order to be entertained, then I really don't know what to say. My big complaint simply lies in the film introducing an character, subplot, or storyline advancement and taking forever to fully resolve or explain it, all while throwing new storyline advancements at you while you're trying to figure out the old, unexplained one at the same time.
I'd definitely recommend WALL·E to almost anyone, if for no other reason than because everyone seems to herald it as the second coming of Christ in movie form, but I'm not so sure that I'd give it a second viewing. I probably will though, and hopefully I'll enjoy it more with the predisposed knowledge of how the characters and story work.