WALL-E

4 stars out of 5

Is this the summer of great animation, or what? The academy is going to face a difficult choice at Oscar-time, with all the world class animation. Great stories, great animation, great voice acting.

The latest in the series is Wall-E. So many things are swirling in my mind after watching this film. First of all, years ago a commentator I respected said if the film is entertaining and you can follow it with the sound turned off, it's good animation. This is good animation. For that matter, the short cartoon that precedes Wall-E, "Presto," is just about perfect. Not a word of dialog. Hysterically funny. I am frequently late to movies. Don't be late for this one (and stay for the credits too; as usual, Pixar does cute stuff during the credits). I have the same feeling I have after almost all Pixar short subjects--I want to see these characters again.

Speaking of the "dialog not needed" rule for good animation, back in the 80s, when Disney was am premium channel and my daughters hung on it dearly, most of the programming was old Disney cartoons. Watching them as an adult made me realize that most early Disney cartoon shorts were almost entirely without dialog. It was only in the late 30s and beyond that Walt caved in to orthodoxy and had everyone talking all the time.

Another thing swirling through my head was that Pixar follows the old Warner Brothers animation rule: simple stories and bright colors for the kids, sly political and social references for the adults. Clearly, the Pixar people have a sense of history and are taking the best ideas of those who have gone before. In the case of Wall-E, Fred Willard as president of the Buy N Large stores, who also becomes President of--the country? The world?--uses the phrase "stay the course" during a speech and is depicted as not too bright. No kid is going to get that, but I laughed out loud. Also, the Autopilot is a direct homage to HAL from the move 2001, as is the music (Thus Spake Zarathustra) to which the captain crawls in a critical scene.

As for voice talent, Eve and Wall-E are voiced by unknowns, who do a great job with the very minimal dialog assigned to these characters. John Ratzenberger, Pixar's good-luck charm, provides voice talent once more, this time as "John," the first person knocked from his floating chair by Wall-E. I am a huge fan of Sigourney Weaver, the voice of the computer--her casting itself is a very inside cultural reference, given her starring roles in Alien and Galaxy Quest."

First class fun for the whole family. Go see it.