Movie Review: WALL-E

Don't worry, no spoilers ahead.

First thing first, WALL-E begins with a short Pixar animation "Presto". It is about a magician named Presto and his apprentice rabbit Alec, which he uses for the traditional Hat-trick. The 5-minute feature documents a stage show where both try to outwit each other, and what follows is a non-stop sequence of outrageously hilarious antics. The video is easily the funniest short animation I have ever seen. It is very fast-paced, yet easy to understand. The only downside is that it is not suitable for people with a weak stomach.

My rating for Presto: 10/10 (This is the closest one could get to perfection)

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Now let's get back to WALL-E. The story is set in the future, some eight to nine hundred years from now. WALL-E (acronym for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) is the only surviving robot on planet Earth, which goes about collecting and compacting trash generated by humans while they still inhabited the planet. WALL-E is no ordinary robot. It is rich with emotions and child-like curiosity. It even has hobbies. And in WALL-E, lies the biggest strength of the movie. WALL-E rarely speaks, and when he did, it would be in a robotic monotone. Yet never in the film do we see a lack of depth in his character. His eyes (binoculars) are extremely expressive, so are his body movements. His hobbies, lifestyle, and quest for companionship, are easy to relate-to and understand. The romance between WALL-E and EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator; sent to look for plant life on Earth) is cute and mostly the kind of love as understood by 10-year-olds. WALL-E's desire to hold EVE's hand has been very beautifully captured in the movie and each of his attempts in doing so is sure to bring a warm joy to anyone remotely familiar with courting.

The story of the movie has a message, and although it forms the core theme of the movie, it doesn't push it hard. Sort of allowing the audience to either ponder deep on it, or leave as an imaginative plot forming the theme of the film and concentrate on the story. The Direction and Screenplay are other strong points of the movie. It looks so real, that one can easily forget that they are watching an animated movie. The Storyline is also good. My only qualm is that the movie could have had a more concrete ending. It is somewhere between an open-ended one and a "they lived happily ever after" one. Surely the ending is on a positive note, but one can't help but wonder if it is good enough.

Now let's move to what the film does badly. Easily, the guest appearance of actual people in the movie was a big let-down. Not only did it dent the effort made by the graphic artists (who created wonderful animated humans) by pitting them against the actual ones, but the actors selected for it did a pathetic job and were hardly convincing. Also, the lifestyle of humans in the future appeared too stereo-typed to be true. It is true one can't easily predict the way humans would live eight hundred years from now, but somehow the life they led in the movie seemed quite card-board like. The ship's captain appeared very dumb for the better part of the movie, and had a brief ingenuity trying to fool the ship's AUTO (pilot).

Overall, the movie is a complete entertainer, with something for people across all ages. The children can marvel at the animation and the funny parts of the movie, the youngsters can relate to the love between WALL-E and EVE, while the adult and elderly get enough to worry about what are we doing to the planet. Go watch it, and you will get the worth of your money.

Overall rating: 9/10. (A fantastic job, but imagination could have been more creative)

Google Whack!

The last week had been very hectic. I couldn't even write a blog since the past 5 days even though I so much wanted to.

The reason is, I watched David Gorman's Google Whack Adventures and can't help myself expressing my comments on it. For those who haven't seen it, I would suggest that you do and stop reading ahead as you will kill the suspense.

The story is based upon a true(well, he claimed it) story of David Gorman who embarked upon a journey through the countries meeting Google Whackers. Here are me reflections and comments on the story....

1) He claims that the story is true based upon the authenticity of tatoo he has on his arm, his boarding passes and his photographs in the various towns with significant people and places. I must say, to have a false story with all these proofs is a very tough job.

2) The accounts I found on different people's website he met seem to confirm his account of the story. This again is very difficult.

3) But what surprises me most is the fact that he never seemed to be stranded for Visa! The New Year day he talks about, he got drunk and found himself in Washington. Hey, you need to have a Visa to cross the border. Morover as he got drunk late in the night, how can you expect him to get the Visa then? Also when he was going to Sydney, we again seem to see that he left U.S.A. within a day of deciding to go to Sydney. If anyone of you can understand how do you get Visa late in the night, and when you are drunk, and when you want it immediately!

4) Another funny thing I observed that all the Google Whacks he mentioned in the show are no more Google Whacks. Apparently, the story is of 2001, and since then so many people have written about this show that the word that he found first (Dork Turnspit) now has over 181 results, and the one that led him to the other David Gorman (Unscrupless Superegos) results in 122 pages.

After watching the movie, two of my friends began their Google Whack Adventures by finding Google Whacks. One of them (Jena parthasarathi) has found 4 until now, while Debabrata Pani has found 5.

This reminds me that yesterday, Debabrata Pani wrote me a very flattering testimonial for my Orkut Profile. I think I can forgive him for misquoting my IQ as 148 when its 149. God....I really miss it. The website said that 150 onwards is genius. I became really frustrated when I saw that missing (+1).