USA Today
4 stars out of 4 -- "[E]ngaging and visually stunning....WALL-E is inventive, poignant and funny in its tale of a spunky robot whose name stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth Class." 06/27/2008Los Angeles Times
"Pixar's latest is wonderful and full of wonder....Daring and traditional, groundbreaking and familiar, apocalyptic and sentimental, WALL-E gains strengths from embracing contradictions..." 06/27/2008 New York Times
"WALL-E surely breaks new ground....It is also a disarmingly sweet and simple love story, Chaplinesque in its emotional purity." 06/27/2008 Entertainment Weekly
"[P]uckishly inventive, altogether marvelous....It whisks you to a new world, then makes that world every inch our own." -- Grade: A 07/11/2008 p.48 Sight and Sound
"[E]xceptionally good. In fact it's one of Pixar's best films....The film's joy, though, is the way WALL-E's situation develops in an organic, lyrical, musical way." 08/01/2008 p.81 Empire
5 stars out of 5 -- "WALL-E is a character of genius, as wondrous an example of the potential of animation as you will ever see." 08/01/2008 42 Rolling Stone
4 stars out of 4 -- "Animation art at its highest level....You leave WALL-E with a feeling of the rarest kind: that you've just enjoyed a close encounter with an enduring classic." 08/07/2008 p.99 Premiere
"Just watching WALL-E putter around earth by himself, crushing trash into neat cubes and listening to his homemade tape of the HELLO, DOLLY! soundtrack is mesmerizing." 06/26/2008 Chicago Sun-Times
"The best science-fiction movie in years....Hugely entertaining, wonderfully well drawn..." 12/05/2008 Rolling Stone
Ranked #5 in Rolling Stone's 'Movies Of The Year' -- "Director Andrew Stanton and his crew have created a visionary masterpiece." 01/08/2008 p.116 Entertainment Weekly
Included in Entertainment Weekly's 2008 Films Of The Year -- "Years from now -- yea, unto eternity -- all who love movies will rank WALL-E among the medium's most profound, subtle, sophisticated, and gorgeously inventive specimens, ever." 12/26/2008 ReelViews 9 of 10
Put simply, WALL-E is about as charming as movies get. In an animated marketplace where everything is starting to look and feel the same, WALL-E stands out because it exhibits a unique identity without losing its appeal to viewers of all ages...WALL-E has a heart to equal many of the Pixar/Disney releases to precede it, including Toy Story and Finding Nemo (WALL-E's writer/director, Andrew Stanton, was involved in both), but a sensibility that is more mature. This is one of those recently rare animated films that adults can attend without children in tow. It's good family fare, to be sure, but it's more than an activity to spend some time with the kids. WALL-E is the best mainstream animated film since The Incredibles...Pixar's most recent two features, Cars and Ratatouille, have been fine examples of animated fare, but WALL-E raises the bar and reminds viewers of the not-so-long-ago era in which every new computer animated film was a revelation...This movie possesses a vibrant heart and a solid story. The characters, despite being made of metal and having circuit boards for brains, are more human than the average protagonist in a summer blockbuster. There are numerous reasons to see WALL-E but the most compelling of these is that it recaptures a motion picture magic that is too often missing from the high-tech playpens called multiplex auditoriums. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 9 of 10
Pixar's "WALL-E" succeeds at being three things at once: an enthralling animated film, a visual wonderment and a decent science-fiction story. After "Kung Fu Panda," I thought I had just about exhausted my emergency supply of childlike credulity, but here is a film, like "Finding Nemo," that you can enjoy even if you've grown up. That it works largely without spoken dialogue is all the more astonishing; it can easily cross language barriers, which is all the better, considering that it tells a planetary story...The movie has a wonderful look. Like so many of the Pixar animated features, it finds a color palette that's bright and cheerful, but not too pushy, and a tiny bit realistic at the same time. The drawing style is Comic Book Cool, as perfected in the funny comics more than in the superhero books: Everything has a stylistic twist to give it flair. And a lot of thought must have gone into the design of WALL-E, for whom I felt a curious affection...What's more, I don't think I've quite captured the film's enchanting storytelling. Directed and co-written by Andrew Stanton, who wrote and directed "Finding Nemo," it involves ideas, not simply mindless scenarios involving characters karate-kicking each other into high-angle shots. It involves a little work on the part of the audience, and a little thought, and might be especially stimulating to younger viewers. This story told in a different style and with a realistic look could have been a great science-fiction film. For that matter, maybe it is. - Roger Ebert
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3.5
