WALL-E

We don't go to actual movies in a theater very often, for three reasons:

1. I'm kind of just a wee bit picky about what I want to pay for (you know, you vote with your money...)
2. It costs an arm and a leg.
3. With Tate's hearing loss, he misses a lot of the dialog. If he's already familiar with the plot , (like Prince Caspian, which we had read), he does fine. But if the plot is complex and unfamiliar, and especially if the dialog goes fast or there is an accent involved... we might as well wait for the DVD, which we can PAUSE, and REWIND so he can 'hear' it better.

Which made WALL-E just about perfect!

3. There really wasn't much dialog!
2. We went to the bargain matinee.
and,
1. WALL-E had some surprisingly good themes, worth talking over with the kids.

PluggedInOnline has a great review, but here's my $.02...

The background to the story seems a bit familiar...

WALL-E is alone on Earth, and lonely. EVE appears, and he falls in love... robot love. Sweet, innocent, nothing that would make your grandmother blush.

All the humans are away, on the ark-like "Axiom", because Earth is uninhabitable. EVE is sent to look for plant-life, as an indicator that Earth is ready to be recolonized. (See any parallels yet?)

But that's just the background for a great "love" story - not the mushy kind. Even the boys loved it, and here's the really good stuff:

* WALL-E is alone (but for a cockroach-friend), lonely, faced with an enormous and overwhelming task, and every day he goes out and works at it. Even with no one watching over him, and with no reward.

* Once WALL-E and EVE become friends, they loyally rescue and protect each other.

* And here's my favorite... When WALL-E gives EVE a living plant, it triggers something in her wiring. She signals the transport ship and becomes "dormant". WALL-E faithfully and sweetly cares for her, seemingly for weeks (?), even though she is completely unresponsive.

Pretty cool for a little G-rated Pixar flick!