Don’t fool yourself WALL-E is no kid’s movie. The world has ended and what’s left on Mother Earth is a trash compactor, WALL-E, sorting through our capitalistic junk pile of “a must have it all now” society.
Without speaking a word through the first third of the movie we feel the indictment as WALL-E takes up his daily routine of rebuilding the remains of world overrun by consumption. He flips through the piles left behind on our deserted planet. He saves Christmas lights, cigarette lighters, re—usable WALL-E parts (self preservation you know) and oh yes, an old videotape of Hello, Dolly! What does he do with his compact cubes? Build buildings of course, buildings that are monuments to our financial cathedrals, skyscrapers of trash.
Hard to imagine that our beloved home ends not at the hands of terrorists with WMD, or WWIII or even the results of global warming, no the world ends when covered with our greed, or what’s left of it.
The only legacy to be the witness of humans who once inhabited Earth are the mega-malls of B&L, Buy in Large (quantities) – an obvious swipe at Wal-Mart, Target, Cosco or any other big box store which encourages our massive lust for more and bigger.
And where are we, humans that is? Why we have left the planet on our cruise space ship. We have been floating in space for 700 years. We have lost our ability to walk, to think, and evidently to care. We still consume, so much so, we’ve become infant-like blimps who float from meal to meal, meal in a cup that is, consumed without discrimination. We float around on lounge chairs with our music in our ears and facebook screens no more than six inches from our mug. While in constant communication with one another, we have lost human contact – no touching, much less seeing the person floating next to you.
Above all else, WALL-E is a love story, on several simple and yet complex levels – subtle and well, not so – it is still a movie for children. If you have children, grandchildren, or you have to borrow them, or if you don’t need an excuse to see a G-rated movie – the movie is more than worth the cost of admission.
