WALL-E (2008)

WALL-E is Charlie Chaplin meets Short Circuit. Our star, the compact robot WALL-E (for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class), is a grimy but perky R2D2 and the sole inhabitant of Earth, long abandoned as a vast global garbage dump. After 800 years, WALL-E is the last functioning trashbot because he's developed a personality plus the foresight for spare-parts storage and self-repair. By gritty determination and hitching a ride with his eventually requited love interest, the sleek and overpoweringly defensive EVE (for Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), WALL-E traverses space to personally witness -- and help resolve -- humanity's failed utopia, painted in the circus colors of Meet the Robinsons but also daubed in the lies of the HAL-like AUTO pilot computer. Consumerism falls straight in the movie's message crosshairs as the megacorporation BNL (for Buy iN Large, like the bastard grandspawn of BFI and Wal-Mart) is revealed as purveyor of the doom of humanity. (Fred Willard is entertaining as the avuncular CEO, speaking on tape to the present generation. Sigourney Weaver also voices the ship's computer in a nosegay to the Alien movies as well as GalaxyQuest.) The CGI is impressive in how it conveys not just WALL-E is a fresh, cloying classic of animation that primarily appeals to children and technogeeks but carries a basic human appeal that will make it a family favorite for, let us hope, generations to come. The disc's bonus shorts, Presto (also seen in the theater) and BURN-E, present ingeniously hilarious slapstick. 5 stars. (7-5-08 updated 12-26-08)