'Wall•E' - High-Def Digest Review

[vooswing]

I just finished watching this and it's another stunning Disney Blu-ray. The PQ and AQ were as I expected from Disney.

The movie also met my expectations for a Pixar flick... good story, great graphics, and just an overall fun flick. I woudn't rank it as high as the Incredibles but still a great movie to have in the collection as I'm sure it will get a ton of replay value for my own enjoyment as well as my nieces and nephews.

[Windows V]

Animating something to look exactly like a person gives you the worst of both worlds. You lose the expression you can get from exaggerated animation, and you lose the spontaneity of live action.

Seriously. Just look at The Polar Express. Still gives me the creeps every time I think about it. Good thing Director Zemeckis learned from his mistakes when he went on to produce the SUPERIOR film, Monster House.... the differences are stunning.

[Columbo345]

Wall*E is more quiet and emotional to me, and probably Pixar's riskiest effort to date. Madagascar is more slapstick (no less entertaining, but definitely different from Wall*E). If it makes any sense, Wall*E really reminds me more of a Japanese anime film like some of Miyazaki's films - fable like and slower, and Madagascar is like Shrek or something with lots of hip pop culture references. To be fair, Wall*E does have some lively action scenes and some jokes peppered throughout too, it's defintely not all serious.

It depends, are you the type of guy that can watch BladeRunner and be amazed all the way through, or do you look at your watch in the middle of the movie and give out frustrated sighs of "when will this end??!?!"

[GregB]

Originally Posted by ivan_fred

The reviewer wrote that there is digital copy that can be played on the PSP. Is that true?

I don't have a PSP and therefore cannot test.

[D_Strasse]

Originally Posted by SweetBrownsugar

Is this movie good for endless playthroughs? if not then i wont buy. How does it stack up with Madagascar?

Madagascar and Wall-E are completely different types of films, completely different.

If you thought Madagascar was your ideal animated movie then Wall-E will, IHMO, leave you flat. Wall-E had its humorous moments but it isn't a comedy. You would be better served by picking up Kung Fu Panda than buying Wall-E.

Personally, I thought Madagascar had it's moments but I generally am not a fan of DW's stuff, good for a rental but not a purchase (again, this is a generalization - Shrek 1, KFP, are keepers in my book.)

Wall-E is more art than cutesy animated kid flick with some adult humor thrown in for the parents.

[DBlockAllDay]

To each his own, but Madagascar was wack. The only good part was the "i like to move it part", but that got played out quick

[manictuco87]

So, I was watching it last night. First off, I loved this movie! Watched it in theaters! Awesome little flick! Now, as per the soundtrack. My receiver said DTS-HD MA 5.1 but it said "DTS ES Matrix" in little letters I thought it was DTS MA 6.1 sound? I thought it would be a 6.1 discrete track? Anyone know?

[borghe]

Originally Posted by Windows V

Seriously. Just look at The Polar Express. Still gives me the creeps every time I think about it. Good thing Director Zemeckis learned from his mistakes when he went on to produce the SUPERIOR film, Monster House.... the differences are stunning.

I am the complete opposite in my opinion about the polar express. it succeeds IN SPITE of the weirdness of the animation. Hanks' acting in the movie is pitch perfect as are the script and score. The set pieces are FANTASTIC and all of the makes the motion capture very easy to forgive.

But yes, from an animation stand point, Monster House was leaps and bounds beyond Polar Express (and a fantastic movie in its own right). It certainly makes me wonder what Polar Express would be like with the music and vocal work identical just with a looser animation style.

Originally Posted by manictuco87

So, I was watching it last night. First off, I loved this movie! Watched it in theaters! Awesome little flick! Now, as per the soundtrack. My receiver said DTS-HD MA 5.1 but it said "DTS ES Matrix" in little letters I thought it was DTS MA 6.1 sound? I thought it would be a 6.1 discrete track? Anyone know?

if your receiver supports DTS-MA decoding it is a DTS-MA 6.1 discrete track. If your receiver only supports standard DTS flavors, the base track is a DTS-ES 6.1 Matrix track. The discrete sixth channel as well as the lossless information is solely kept in the MA differential track.

[nexpos]

Wow, not only did I love this movie in the theater, but the BD is unbelievable. The special features are fantastic, and the HD quality is amazing. I think this should be a "blind buy" for anyone. Also got an 8.7/10 on IMDB.

[nelll]

I saw Wall-E BD and I must say that Peter's review was superb and very accurate. I can also say that Wall-E is the second best movie I saw this year after The Dark Night. (IMO).

[ronnie_barzel]

After watching it again today, I'm not sure where the "anti-corporate" message some of you are picking up is coming from. I'll agree with anti-consumer (we do buy and throw out a lot of junk), but BnL doesn't seem to be evil. Its actions -- the evacuation ships, the WALL-E cleanup -- make it seem as if it's at the forefront of trying to save people and restore the planet.

Anyway, loved the movie. I don't think it was the best Pixar has made, but with their high quality trying to put them into any definite order is splitting hairs.

[cooltobeyou]

I saw this for the first time last night, and I thought it was a pretty good effort from Pixar. I'd definitely rate it light years better than Cars (I fail to see the appeal in that trash), and its slightly better than Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, and Ratatouille. However, I still don't think it comes anywhere close to touching the two Toy Story films.

"Wall-E", while a good film, had some hit and miss elements for me...

Things that I liked:

- Wall-E and Eve....exceptional characters...I never thought there could be that much emotion displayed by a CGI cartoon robot that barely speaks.
- The completely trashed planet earth...for some reason I enjoyed the parts of the movie set in this location.
- The fact that the main characters rarely speak a word. Again, you can really get a sense of emotion from this film just by the expressions of the characters and the soundtracks
- The picture quality. This movie LOOKS fantastic. I could have sworn some of the scenes were almost three dimensional.

Things that I didn't like:

- The fat human characters...BLAH. The rest of the movie is so beautiful and fully realized, and then it gets to the thousands of generic looking fat ass human characters. Seriously, the humans were the most generic characters this side of "Cars." I guess they were supposed to be like that, to help emphasize just how human the robots were, but I ended up hating the human characters.

- Mixing in live action with the animation. It didn't work in Happy Feet, and it didn't work here. It just serves to suck me out of the universe that the movie is trying to create.

- The lack of dialouge...yeah, this is a pro and a con for the movie. At certain points, I enjoyed how quiet the movie is...and other times my mind would start drifting and I would have to actually think to myself, "what is happening in this scene now. Did I miss something?" My attention span must be really short.

Overall, I'd give this just barely a 4 out of 5. I'll stick with Kung Fu Panda myself, because I found it to be the more enjoyable film.

[Windows V]

- The fat human characters...BLAH. The rest of the movie is so beautiful and fully realized, and then it gets to the thousands of generic looking fat ass human characters. Seriously, the humans were the most generic characters this side of "Cars." I guess they were supposed to be like that, to help emphasize just how human the robots were, but I ended up hating the human characters.

It's supposed to show the results of hundreds of years of vegetative lifestyle. I thought it was pretty awesome how they managed to make humans that fat without making them into ugly portrayals - every human, although massively bloated, is still very likeable in terms of attitude, personality, etc, like the captain.

[will9631]

Originally Posted by cooltobeyou

Things that I didn't like:

- The fat human characters...BLAH. The rest of the movie is so beautiful and fully realized, and then it gets to the thousands of generic looking fat ass human characters. Seriously, the humans were the most generic characters this side of "Cars." I guess they were supposed to be like that, to help emphasize just how human the robots were, but I ended up hating the human characters.

- Mixing in live action with the animation. It didn't work in Happy Feet, and it didn't work here. It just serves to suck me out of the universe that the movie is trying to create.

- The lack of dialouge...yeah, this is a pro and a con for the movie. At certain points, I enjoyed how quiet the movie is...and other times my mind would start drifting and I would have to actually think to myself, "what is happening in this scene now. Did I miss something?" My attention span must be really short.

Overall, I'd give this just barely a 4 out of 5. I'll stick with Kung Fu Panda myself, because I found it to be the more enjoyable film.

After rewatching it on bluray (saw it twice in theaters), I think you hit some key points there. Its one of my favorite all time movies, though for me that's in spite of a few flaws, namely the live-action decisions they made. The Fred Willard scenes didn't work for me at all, even though I generally like him as a performer. Like you I also didn't go for the way the humans were done, though it doesn't bother me because the robots take such a more central role to the film.

The reason I think I like it even more than a much more "perfect" movie like Ratatouille is that it went for more and took a bigger risk in general, allowing for even greater payoff. It may have made a misstep or two, but I get caught up in it more easily and get more emotional punch than I get from most any other movie in my library. I find the scenes between walle and eve to be among the most touching ever captured on screen, and I know that there are moments that will always stick with me, as only happens with truly great cinema.

KFP on the other hand, while for me a wonderful little movie, was neither bold nor perfect. It didn't want to be either of those things and thats ok. There's something to be said for a movie that knows what it wants to be and just does that really well, as KFP did, but ten years from now it'll be just another disk on my shelf while I'm still comparing love scenes in movies to moments from Wall-e.

[pdferguson]

Originally Posted by cooltobeyou

I'd definitely rate it light years better than Cars (I fail to see the appeal in that trash), and its slightly better than Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, and Ratatouille. However, I still don't think it comes anywhere close to touching the two Toy Story films.

Since I'm already reviled here on this thread, I've got nothing to lose by saying that Cars is perhaps my favorite Pixar movie to date, followed closely by The Incredibles, Nemo, and the others. I have zero interest in car racing, but something about the story really struck me, and I never tire of the animation. I also love Randy Newman's score, it really creates a strong emotional connection to the story and characters.

Chalk it up as a guilty pleasure if you must, but I love it.

Originally Posted by cooltobeyou

"Wall-E", while a good film, had some hit and miss elements for me...

Things that I liked:

- Wall-E and Eve....exceptional characters...I never thought there could be that much emotion displayed by a CGI cartoon robot that barely speaks.
- The completely trashed planet earth...for some reason I enjoyed the parts of the movie set in this location.
- The fact that the main characters rarely speak a word. Again, you can really get a sense of emotion from this film just by the expressions of the characters and the soundtracks
- The picture quality. This movie LOOKS fantastic. I could have sworn some of the scenes were almost three dimensional.

Things that I didn't like:

- The fat human characters...BLAH. The rest of the movie is so beautiful and fully realized, and then it gets to the thousands of generic looking fat ass human characters. Seriously, the humans were the most generic characters this side of "Cars." I guess they were supposed to be like that, to help emphasize just how human the robots were, but I ended up hating the human characters.

- Mixing in live action with the animation. It didn't work in Happy Feet, and it didn't work here. It just serves to suck me out of the universe that the movie is trying to create.

- The lack of dialouge...yeah, this is a pro and a con for the movie. At certain points, I enjoyed how quiet the movie is...and other times my mind would start drifting and I would have to actually think to myself, "what is happening in this scene now. Did I miss something?" My attention span must be really short.

Overall, I'd give this just barely a 4 out of 5. I'll stick with Kung Fu Panda myself, because I found it to be the more enjoyable film.

I agree with your pro's and con's on Wall•E, although I didn't find the main characters (Eve in particular) all that engaging, and felt the lack of dialog worked against them more than most people here. The depth of voice talent in Cars was another big plus in my opinion; it's particularly poignant to listen to Paul Newman's Doc Hudson (Cars was his last movie role).

I will give Wall•E a second look on Blu-ray, but I don't think this movie will ever become a favorite of mine.