Wall•E was awesome.
Lisa and I decided to take Eloise to her first movie at the Mendon drive-in last night. We got there alittle late, but considering that it was on “screen 2″ and it was not opeing weekend, we were still able to find a good parking spot. This was my first experience at a drive-in, and i gotta say, it was a fun time. Before the show, its more akin to going to see the town fireworks, with kids and parents walking around, throwing footballs, and lawn chairs everywhere (not throwing the lawn chairs). There were the average troop of high school meatheads and their clueless cellphone obsessed girlfriends. Whats with the flat-bill baseball hat look nowadays? Do they all want to look like frickin truckers? (sigh) Stupid kids.
Wall•E was another Pixar masterpiece. This one actually had elements of live-action video mixed in (a first for Pixar) that was surpising to see from a company that had avoided any element of “reality” in all their previous films. Wall•E was, of course, cute as hell, and I instantly wanted to own the action figure. Those clever chaps at Pixar took elements of the beloved R2D2 and Johnny Five and packaged them into a lovable little cube with huge, expressive eyes. Good job Pixar, I’m sold.
The message of the movie was pretty blatant, and I can see how uptight conservatives might get upset. After all, there is not such thing as Global Warming. Pretty much, we are turning into convenience driven drones, and we are making one hell of a mess of our planet at the same time. Wall•E was left behind (along with what seemed to be a large number of robots like him) to clean up humanity’s mess, while they were away. Turns out the task was nigh impossible, and poor Wall•E is the last of his kind to survive, still diligently working along. Wall•E is apparently solar powered, and when he receives a full charge, he “boots up” and emits your standard run-of-the-mill Macintosh startup chime. I laughed every time he did this. Mac geeks everywhere, rejoice.
The animation, was fantastic, and the characters, even though most of them had little to no ability to actually talk, were very compelling and expressive. I wish there were more scenes in space, with stars, nebulae, planetary rings, etc. The few scenes of space travel with Wall•E exploring these new wonders, were really breathtaking.
My only grevience: Can plants be exposed to the vacum of space for short periods without dying? I’d think they would freeze up and die instantly. I just dont know. Its a robot kids movie, Brian, get over it.
Overall, it was a great night. We stuck around for the double-feature, Mamma Mia. Apparently a musical with Merril Streep and Pierce Brosnan, designed around the premise of a confused 20 yr old girl, three “cougars” and a whole boatload of shirtless male modles, dancing and singing around a small tourist town. Soething about a wedding, and eh, lots of unnesesary dancing. I dunno, Eloise and I though it was a snoozer, she took a nap on my chest, and I took a nap in my chair, symbiotic sleepytime. Lisa enjoyed it though, so thats all that matters, really.
