Movie Log: Wall*E

Our whole family went to see Wall*E the weekend it opened, since we're all immense Pixar fans in the Hornswoggler house. (As all upstanding, right-thinking people are, of course.)

I didn't write about it immediately because things got busy, and because I didn't have any specific things to say about it. If I'd gotten out there quickly enough, I could have made fun of all the people whining about it -- leftists because it's mean to fatties, rightists because it's mean to rapacious corporations -- but I didn't and that's so two weeks ago.

So what can I say? Wall*E is the story of a robot that falls in love; it's one of the best movies for physical comedy in many years; and, in the end, it's somewhat more moralistic than smart. It means well, and it generally does well, even if the humans' ultimate fate doesn't really make sense (except in terms of the moral). I'm not going to bother to tell the story here; at this point, you either know it well enough or you're not interested.

Ranking it in the pantheon of Pixar movies, I'd have to put it in the second tier, like The Incredibles, another marvelous movie that lets its message pop out in unnecessarily embarrassing ways. If it's not as good as Ratatouille or Finding Nemo, it's clearly better than A Bug's Life or Cars. And middle-rank Pixar is better than 75% of the movies out there, so I expect to watch this several more times -- maybe even without the kids.