Wall-E

I have to say, I didn't love this movie. Actually, that's not quite right. I didn't love it as a KIDS' movie.

You know that movie with Tom Hanks, where he's on the desert island and there's no dialogue for like an hour? This is the Pixar version of that movie. For the first 2/3rds of the movie, you just see this robot wandering around a trash-filled planet. You don't know where he is or what's going on. There are some visual clues, but they're a bit advanced for the average kid to pick up on. Other text-based clues, like what "Wall-E" stands for, are also a bit much for the kids to grasp--if the child is even able to read at all. (When my Little Sister asked me what was written on the front of Wall-E, I whispered back, "It says, 'Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class'." She looked at me like "Yeah, thanks for clearing that up." Telling her that EVE, the robot who later and mysteriously joined him, stood for "Exterterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator" was met with the same look.)

Then when you finally learn where Wall-E is (Earth), where all the people are and why they've left their home planet, you've already answered the questions "What's going on?" "Where are they?" "Who's that?" and "What is that?" a few dozen times. And the message of the movie--that humans will make Earth completely inhabitable if they don't (literally) clean up their acts--with a side helping of "our society is on its way to becoming a bunch of fat and lazy slobs"--is a bit heavy. In fact, most of the kids in the theater didn't even seem to be picking up on any of that. They just thought Wall-E was cute (and he was. Very much so).

In many ways, Wall-E is a masterpiece. I just think that the factors that make it so are lost on the majority of the audience. For older kids and grown ups, though, this is a great movie.

So tell me what YOU think. Am I completely off base? Do you totally disagree with me? Was I just in the "slow" theater? Or was this representative of theaters across the country?