In The Loop (Armando Iannucci, 2009)

Before I start, I have to say I haven’t seen the show In the Thick of it, which this film apparently was somewhat based on, so I have no previous references. Of course, as always, a film should be able to stand on its own and the audience shouldn’t have to know other sources to understand the film itself. Right? Good.

When the film immediately starts it really evoked the feeling that The Office had, however this seems to go away after a little while, like the film became embarrassed or something. However it does also become quite clear that this is nothing like The Office, particularly in its style and “realism”. The film is a parody of government and bureaucracy. And it works quite well. Indeed, I found the film to be very funny, although some might not like this particular type of British humor. The story goes that some people want to invade an unnamed country, while others don’t. One particularly useless British MP indicates on National television that he wishes for war, although he really doesn’t, he’s just extremely inept at expressing himself. Who’s on whose side? No one really knows. Who wants what? Well, no one really know that either, and the ensuing chaos which goes from the streets of London all the way to Washington DC is what most of this films spends its time exploring.

Although the dialogue is occasionally hilarious, I found the film to be quite dialogue heavy. Like someone said on IMDb, it’s an extremely quotable film, but I think it is too much so. There’s only so many times that I find the though British guy who tells people what sort of assorted items he’s going to stick up their ass funny. The characters, one dimensional as they were, are very funny, and work in the way that archetypes work. I particularly liked one sleazy gentleman who worked in Washington, the kind of guy that always promises you that everything will be alright and he’ll sort it out, then stabs you in the back with the knife your own son made in shop class. And he made it as a gift to you! I also liked how the film showed how Americans and the British really feel about each other. Where the Americans just think the British are a little bit silly and non-threatening, while the British admire the Americans in awe in the same way that a child will admire Superman.

But having said all that, I feel that the film is a bit lazy, lazy in that particular way that it lulls its audience back into a comforting state of paralysis where they don’t think about the world in an engaging way. The film parodies the inner workings of government and portrays everyone therein as either a massive idiot or just someone controlled by someone else, who is probably also an idiot. And so we, the audience, sit back in our IKEA sofa, laugh and point, and say “Yes! Everyone in government is really an idiot; it’s a chaotic mess where no one knows what’s going on. Now let’s eat our lasagna before it gets cold.” Obviously the film is heightened reality, a parody, and all of it is really just the most extreme made even a little bit more extreme. But in its doing so, I feel that it doesn’t quite hit close enough to home, it’s funny, but a little too silly. It doesn’t really take a stance, or come close to making people question the inner workings of political government. Obviously there are a lot of traces of the truth in there, I just feel it creates itself a little too much like a parody, and a little too less as a satire.

Still, the film is entertaining, and at times hilarious. It starts off a bit slowly, but as the plot thickens it gets more and more interesting. Worth a watch.

Burn After Reading (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2008)

The Coen brothers turned out one of the best films from American cinema this decade last year, and possibly their best film, No Contry for Old Men of course. So now, just a meagre year later, they have another film ready for the cinema. Throughout their career they have had a tendency to make a slightly more silly film after their serious film. This is apparent here as well, as No Country for Old Men was quite a thoughtful and serious film, with the slight cameo of the Coen’s own brand of dark humour.

In Burn After Reading this dark humour is the core part of the film, and for what it is worth, it is probably the Coen’s best straight comedy in quite a while. The film is filled with dark and almost nihilistic. The characters are simply all idiots, not likable, and generally self-centred. But this works quite nicely, because it creates a nice little unique Coen world, where the rules are somewhat bended compared to the “real world”. The cast is also fairly vast, featuring George Clooney, John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, Richard Jenkins, and of course the wonderful Frances McDormand, who was great in Fargo (Joel Coen, 1996). They all do an adequate job, but I thought George Clooney was one of the better ones, creating a very strange character, but the team of McDormand and Pitt was also very funny, and an inspired pairing. The main point of the film is that all the characters are after something, however no one has any idea of what the hell is going on. Characters are misled, they believe things that aren’t true, usually because of their own idiocy or misjudgement, and in the end nothing really resolves. It is a film that was made just for good fun, and I thought it worked quite well at that, the humour is at time sublime, however, as a piece of filmmaking one cannot deny that it comes well short of No Country for Old Men. The story is interesting though, the characters are quirky and fun, and the structure of the film keeps one interested throughout.

I’m looking forward to seeing what more the Coen’s can come up with. They had quite a spell where most their films were quite sub-par, but with these recent two they seem to be back on track. Well see what kind of film their next will be, but I sort of doubt that they will in the foreseeable future make a film that tops No Country for Old Men. Back to the film itself, it will never become a true Coen classic, it doesn’t have quite the darkness and cleverness of Fargo, nor is it as funny as The Big Lebowski (Joel Coen, 1998). It is a nice and quirky little piece of comedy that probably will stay as one of those Coen films like The Hudsucker Proxy (Joel Coen, 1994). The Coen’s are in this way similar to Woody Allen, coming up with new films almost every year and have had quite a quality curve. One thing I like about Burn After Reading which I usually wouldn’t like in films is that the characters have minimal development, and don’t really learn anything. This is due to their exceeding stupidity. A lot of people hated Burn After Reading, calling it perhaps the worst Coen film. I don’t agree with this though, the dark humour works well, several times I laughed, several times I laughed a lot. The ending was also fantastic, and punctuated the film in a great way. I thing the reason why someone might not enjoy the film is because they will be quite detached from the characters. But I like the detachment, because it works well with the dark humour and ridiculing of the characters.

All in all, I enjoyed Burn After Reading. It is an enjoyable comedy, but not a great piece of filmmaking. It’s a good outing from the Coen’s, but I think we will see better films than this to come from them in the years.

The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)

We are nearing the end of 2008, and so far cinematically it has been fairly disappointing compared to the phenomenal year of 2007. The rave of the year has been the follow up to Batman Begins, the new instalment of a series of Batman films, furthering the concept since the interpretation started by Tim Burton. I asked myself: Is it really a good idea to create a realistic environment around a character and idea that in of itself is unrealistic and stylistic. Furthermore, the role of the Joker has been hyped up to a great degree, to the degree of annoyance, due to the unfortunate death of Heath Ledger. These things make me suspicious rather than expecting anything good, and before I heard of his death I hadn’t seen him in anything, and before I saw The Dark Knight I had only seen him in I’m Not There (Todd Haynes, 2007) where he didn’t impress me that much.

Well, as usual, not everything is sunshine and flowers in Gotham City, when a maniacal clown is on the loose and wreaking havoc. So it’s up to Batman and his merry band of friends to save the day, and so they do, at least for this round. It is hard for any Batman film to surprise its audience, particularly because of how we have been familiar with these characters for so long. I guess this is inevitable for any film based on a popular hero franchise, such as Spiderman and Superman. However, unlike a lot of such films that have been released recently, Christopher Nolan does do a fair and honest stab at revitalizing the franchise. The main problem is that, with the legions of rabid fans waiting at the doors of the cinema, demanding a “correct” interpretation of the source material, it becomes problematic to creatively make a film that pleases both the hardcore fans of the series and the more casual audiences not too familiar with the original comics. It can to a certain degree be said as a fact that Nolan succeeded this, the film did exceedingly well in the cinemas and soaring high, currently fourth, on the IMDB Top 250 Films list. Although I don’t really agree with such lists, it does point towards the films success. So why bother writing this, the film is already praised to the skies and the fans all across the board love it. However, I feel I should express my thoughts on some of the problems in the film, as well as a concern for the popularity of the film, few films of this sorts have seen anything like.

One of the main problems is that while Nolan is striving for more realism, I wonder exactly how that realism includes a masked man with super strength and reflexes wearing a suit and calls himself Batman works in that realism? I know it is not to wise to question the realism of Batman, but somehow I feel the set reality of a film should work throughout all the elements, and thus the old Burton’s Batman films were in sort more realistic, as they worked in conjunction with Batman’s own realism. There is an attempt to work around this by making the Joker more realistic. There are different incarnations of how the Joker came to be, but the most common one is that he fell in some toxic waste which bleached his face, turned his hair green and froze his mouth into a smile. In the film, however, they chose to make him into an ambiguous maniac with a questionable sense of fashion. But lo and behold, it actually does work to some degree. Somehow the Joker now seems much more menacing. And yes, I will buy into the hype and agree that Heath Ledger’s acting is one of the highlights of the film, and makes the Joker disturbing and fascinating to watch on the screen. However, a lot of great chances to make the Joker an even more interesting character are wasted, making him more watered down and essentially undermining a lot of the effort put into the character by Ledger. The performance individually still stands out though.

There is also a structural problem in the film, in that it lacks a good cohesive structure, wavering too much around, the film has so much to tell and despite the long running time it seems like the film could have said a lot more. Essentially, some parts should have been cut, and more depth should have been added to other parts. The character Two-Face, who is introduced later in the film, is probably the root problem of this, disturbing the interesting balance between the Joker and the Batman characters. He is essentially supposed to support both and create some depth, however, the character takes something away from the main conflict, and suffers from poor execution. The later part of the film is the most unappealing of the film, a lot due to this. The film tries to go deep into psychology and philosophy, and sets up for something great, but eventually decides to provide easy answers to complicated questions and avoids provoking disturbing questions about human nature. The Joker character sets up such questions throughout the film, and does genuinely seem provocative and interesting, but towards the end this is undermined and becomes less interesting. Also, one would think that Hollywood had managed to get away from the inevitable romance that complicates the hero’s journey, however they have not, and this further muddles a lot of the efforts that went into trying to say something deeper.

The Dark Knight is a good entertainment film, but other than that, the idea that it poses serious questions on society and has much depth is an illusion. The film has excellent potential for all that, but eventually falls flat and undermines its own strengths for mainstream purposes. Also, others saying this is the darkest Batman film made, sure, the Joker character is disturbing, but Tim Burton’s Batman Returns (1992) was much darker and depressing. In the end, the film had much going for it, but poor choices and executions did a lot of hard to an otherwise fine film. I was a big fan of Batman as a kid, and I’m not entirely sure how this is so popular to such a mature audience, but there you go. The Joker character is fascinating at times, but falls flat throughout. Apparently there is going to be more Batman films by Nolan & Co, but I personally think this is as good as it’s going to get for this team, and will reserve my enthusiasm until they decide to make Batman: The Musical.

There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)

In contemporary cinema, 2007 was one of the best years of American films in quite a while. One of the new proclaimed “classics” that I hadn’t yet seen was There Will Be Blood. But other than that, I had seen some quite remarkable films from 2007, like I’m Not There (Todd Haynes, 2007), No Country for Old Men (Joel Coen; Ethan Coen, 2007), and some maybe not fantastic movies but still really good, such as Sweeney Todd (Tim Burton, 2007) and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007). So I was very much looking forward to watching There Will Be Blood, considering what a good year it had been for Hollywood cinema.

I’m not that familiar with Paul Thomas Anderson, I’ve seen Magnolia, which was quite good, but other than that I haven’t seen anything else by him. However, Magnolia is very different from There Will Be Blood, and in every aspect, in my opinion, There Will Be Blood is superior to Magnolia. In fact, I believe in 20 or so years this will be remembered as one of the defining classics of the early 21st century, together with No Country for Old Men of course. I was in a period where I despised anything from Hollywood, seeing it as “garbage” and “sell-out”. And while that does indeed apply for a lot of the cinema there, or in fact anywhere, There Will Be Blood proves that great films still are created in Hollywood, challenging any of the great Classics from the Golden Era and the 70’s Hollywood. There Will Be Blood is a character study and drama. Daniel Day-Lewis creates a fascinating character on screen, and entrepreneur who relishes in defeating and besting his opponents. There is a certain calmness to the character though, but the sub-text all comes through from the face and voice of Lewis. His performance in this film is so important, because the film is basically centred on his character, and in this respect is somewhat similar to Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980). These character dramas so easily fall and stumble, and much power is left to the actor, and Day-Lewis indeed does this justice, and deserved the Oscar he won. In fact, 2007 was a great year for Oscars, actually going to films and people who deserved them (2006 was disappointing, sure, it was nice of Scorsese winning an overdue Oscar, but best film and script as well? Please). I’m not sure whether I like No Country for Old Men or There Will Be Blood, but for certain, both would have deserved the Oscar.

The film has some superb cinematography; the beautiful wide shots of the wilderness capture the harsh terrain that the oil prospectors have to work with, and also stand as a great background element for the action on the screen. Some images will stick to your head forever, in particular the scene where the oil well burns. This is accompanied by the wonderful and original score, composed by Radiohead band member Johnny Greenwood. Anderson brings it all together with his directing, which throughout the film is spot on, creating all focus around Day-Lewis’ character. As the character develops, his environment and the people are all affected and develop too. While some say this is the story of a prospector building up his fortune, I find this interpretation slightly uninteresting. The most important part of the film and its core is the development and mental state of the character. It is in many ways quite a complicated film in this respect, and much interpretation can be brought to the character. This is one of the things that makes me believe this film will stay alive for many years to come, because there will always be something interesting to discuss and wonder about the character and the themes evoked by the film. It is quite universal, and will always feel relevant. I will want to watch this again soon, because I find it very fascinating, and I am sure the film will with each new viewing have something new to bring to me.

For me there is little doubt, There Will Be Blood is in every respect a modern masterpiece, and it is a pleasure to be around when it came out. Like so many other films from the old days, this one will be remembered, while the box-office films will be forgotten in the dust. There Will Be Blood will stand as a testament that Hollywood still can make world class quality films that are fascinating and have depth. A very positive trend last year, probably the strongest year of American cinema in the new century.

Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright, 2004)

I’ve got no great infatuation with zombie films, but I found this in a store for £3 and thought it might be a nice view for a good laugh, and my friend a couple of years ago recommended this to me. Although I had my doubts, parody has become a blighted genre of late, if you are any familiar with contemporary American cinema you will know what I am talking about. But considering this was British, I thought it might be different. And indeed it was.

One of the things that really get to me in parody movies is how way over the top they go. I known, it’s a parody, but it truly borders on the pointless. Shaun of the Dead, however, shows us how a good parody film should be made. It borrows from its inspiration, but at the same time is quite loving to its source. Most American parody films are vile and mock their source, which makes us question what the whole purpose is. It is clear that the filmmakers loved the old zombie films, and make a lot of reference to these films, but also manages to make fun of the clichés and plot holes without mocking them. One thing I found interesting was that this film was clearer shot and looked more professional than one of its sources, Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1978). It is usually the other way around, but considering Romero’s original films were fairly low-budget it does make some sense. The effects are good, although quite scarce, at least compared to Dawn of the Dead. Shaun of the Dead is clever in putting a fairly normal romantic comedy plot into the zombie film. Not so cleverly though they used very similar fast paced editing techniques seen in Guy Ritchie’s Snatch (2000). First off, these techniques are superficial and redundant. They do not necessarily add to the narrative, and although they did in Snatch, don’t here. There is quite a bit of good directing though, one of my favourite parts is a long take where the camera pans with the protagonist as he goes to get something from the store. This is repeated twice, the second time after the zombies have started to take over, however the characters actions remain exactly the same.

This is one of the most interesting comedic points the film makes, how most people in the beginning of the film don’t notice the zombies. A scene where two of the main characters see a zombie in their garden, they respond with: “Oh my God. She’s so drunk!” The film makes a point in many ways how some of us are mindless zombies anyway, not to mention the ending, but it is a fairly original idea and is executed well, although a similar idea was done on The Simpsons a couple of years earlier. The most important thing to ask though is if the comedy works. I would say it does, the film is cast well and the comedy is very good. It’s not over the top, but slightly understated. There is a lot of in your face comedy, and quite a bit of subtle hidden comedy bits you won’t necessarily get on the first view. The film also plays well with its genre conventions, and mixing the two really works well. Another thing that separates this from most of the garbage that comes from America is that it’s quite dark for a comedy. There are several parts that aren’t that funny, but quite sad, and some moments make us actually care about the characters, while the American equivalent makes its characters out of tinfoil. I believe fans of zombie films will love this, because it makes gracious references to its sources and heighten the genre.

I was very surprised by this film, and in a good way. I just watched it to have something easy to watch, and while that was right; it turned out to have a lot more potential than I thought. The directing goes from being annoying to very good, but the comedy is rarely left out, and when it is, it’s for something more interesting. Recommended to film viewers in general.

Cachè (Michael Haneke, 2005)

After watching La Pianiste by Michael Haneke, I knew that his cinema would have more in store for me, and my expectations were exceeded when watching Cahcè. Haneke now in my eyes seems like a truly interesting director, and I’ve just got to ask myself why I haven’t seen any of his films before, or really heard about him.

Usually I don’t like to discuss plot in these little blurbs, but I feel it is important here to get my feelings across about the film. A married couple receives a videotape and some disturbing drawings. The videotapes are filmed outside their house, and show them as they arrive at home. The husband, Georges, notes that he can’t understand why he didn’t notice the camera. For the rest of the film, the lead character is concerned with discovering who the sender of the videotapes is. However, as I found, the identity of the sender is really not important. As the film progresses, the tension between the couple increase, and buried feelings of guilt emerge. It’s a really good dissection of the coldness and shallowness that emerge in such middleclass marriages, but it also deals with cultural guilt and specifically that of France, but I won’t go into it too much, as it might ruin the film for prospective viewers. Regardless, the film slowly unfolds layers of the character, we are given blurred and ambiguous moments of his childhood. Are they true memories or his imagination? This ambiguity is one of the strengths of the film, what gives it its certain character. On the surface it seems like a normal thriller, but it proves itself to be something more, with layers of comments on the characters lives and cinema itself. As a genre exercise it also plays with the expectations of the audience, and will many times leave us astray.

One thing I found interesting is that the shots from the videotapes are shot identically to the film. Usually, the videotapes would have an amateur look to them and look grainy. There could be many implications by this, and I don’t this is an accident. The way the film is set up, there are many times you would think that what you see is a new videotape, but then it is revealed to be a normal shot. It might be a comment on the filmmaker’s power over his characters. It also creates a feeling of alienation, the audience will forget the escapism of the genre and remember that they are watching a film. It also shows us the acute details we are privileged of the characters very private lives, as they feel the videotapes are very unnerving, it almost seems as if they are aware that we are watching them. It’s a very simple technique that Haneke is using here, but also very powerful. I do like it a lot when directors use methods like these, to force the audience to question their relationship with the characters on screen. As said, the lead character is brought to feelings of shame, or at least it’s acknowledged that he should feel shame. This is paralleled to a national level and France specifically. It’s hard to mention the details without ruining the plot, however, I do think it works quite well, and so the film at the same time as being a good characters study, also becomes political.

There’s not much I can say about the directing without repeating myself from what I wrote on La Pianiste. As earlier, it’s very consistent and creates a true form in the film. I feel the cinematography is used even better here though, at times feels almost black and white. Its sharp and the colour black is often brought forward, giving the images an almost chilly coldness. It does well to help the portrayal of the family. Haneke also uses similar long takes here, dwelling on certain images, although slightly less than in La Pianiste. The directing here is not as direct as in La Pianiste, and grows on playing with ambiguity. In the end, Cachè is not about the plot, but what is happening to the characters due to it. Usually in such films, the plot is the main point of the film, but here it is simply a device to stir up the characters, and unveil their past. Herein lays the beauty of Cachè, a truly constructed film that could be analyzed to every frame and still remain ambiguous. Cachè means hidden, but what is hidden? The sender of the videotapes, the feelings of the main character, the camera of Haneke? All these questions will be unanswered after you watch the film, but they still remain fascinating to answer.

I thought Cachè was a marvellous film, a truly great contemporary piece. It will probably be remembered and studied for years to come. Its themes are evocative, its structure and intents complex. A film I probably will come back to many times.

La Pianiste (Michael Haneke, 2001)

Like with the Visconti review, this is the first film I’ve seen by Michael Haneke, so excuse my lack of previous knowledge of this director. All I knew was that he is a controversial director and his films might give me bad dreams. Anyway, since many people were talking about Haneke and I seemed to have let him go over my head, so I thought it was best to watch some of his film. Also, I found Le Pianiste for 7£ at HMV, so it seemed as good a place to start as any.

One of the first things I noticed in La Pianiste which I always look for in films was consistency in the directing. Le Pianiste has a clear style and sticks to it, which I feel always makes films better, and in this case it certainly did. The style here is cold, and the camera is at times unforgiving, giving us harsh details of the very private life of the protagonist. It’s extremely direct, and I admire Haneke for this, he doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything, and is really a force in his directing. The sexual and violent tension rises throughout the films, to moments where it seems almost unreal in its reality. Slow long takes are at work here, and Haneke has no trouble with dwelling on a single image of something that might be disturbing to the audience. He spends a lot of time building our knowledge of the characters, but at the same times avoids implying the obvious, and remains ambiguous. I feel Haneke really wants the audience to respond and be active, he shows, but doesn’t explain. In many ways it’s a very strange film, we are allowed the most personal details of the protagonist’s life, but we never seem to be able so grasp her character, her motivations. She’s throughout her life been abused by her controlling mother, but it never seem a satisfying enough explanation. The characters appear obscure enough, but at the same time the audience is given enough material to decide themselves what’s going on in their heads. As far as I’m aware, Haneke believes the interpretation of the audience is important, and it does show in this film.

What’s interesting about this film though is how it constantly attempts to provoke some response from the audience. And it’s just not the sexual scenes, but also the scenes that almost act like a subtle melodrama. There is a constant tension in the lead character and also between the different characters. As said, Haneke’s camera is almost unforgiving at times, dwelling on the characters faces, the almost too honest filmmaking I assume will be too much for some people, Haneke’s craft almost seems bitter at times. It is intimidating at times at how direct the film is, nothing is hidden or censored. The sexual scenes are unlike any other film, and are dragged out for long periods of time, feeling almost endless. We’ve seen this kind of “heightened risk” technique before, but Haneke really uses it to its full potential. He also really manages to portray the lead character’s unfolding repressed sexuality in a very non-exploitative way, but his straight-forwardness makes it seem even more mature. The interaction between the different characters is also very impressive, at times showing how they try to gain sexual dominance over one-another. Some pieces of the dialogue and action is at times fascinating, in the end culminating in a stirringly provocative ending.

This type of film might not be for everybody, but its definitely one of the most intriguing contemporary films I’ve seen, and I will definitely check out more films by Michael Haneke.

Wall-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)

The other day I decided I needed to do something, rather than lying around and wasting away in my flat, so I went and watched Pixar’s latest attempt at capitalizing on our emotions. I’ve not seen a Pixar movie for quite some time, but I was genuinely interested in Wall-E, it seemed like a different type of animated feature than the others they make, and I thought the film would have some themes that would interest me, the poster alone sold me. All this turned out to be correct, to an extent.

First off, I want to congratulate Pixar on probably the most archaic dystopian future I’ve ever seen in an animated film. None of that “everything’s going to turn to shit” like Akira, still none of that happy future crap that The Jetsons rambled about, but a wonderful mix. Wall-E feels like a genuine attempt at innovating a much too stagnant genre, and the film does feel rewarding as such. The film also makes a brave attempt at no dialogue, but using visual communication instead. It does seem as the Pixar team wishes to challenge themselves, and they succeed at it. The first hour or so is probably the most wonderful I’ve ever seen of any animated films, the visual humour, the subtle touches, the wonderful art-design, it all comes together perfectly. The development of the relationship between Wall-E and Eve feels natural and actually does touch the audience, probably because all excess dialogue is not in place, and the emotions of the robots seem more reliable than most humans do on screen. The humour is also well placed and sweet, small gags are found everywhere, and at times it feels like an old Chaplin movie.

Sadly though, as the film progresses it falls into the all too familiar cliché’s of the cartoon genre, and while the first half is innovative and original, the second half does give me the feeling of seeing something in repeat. We’ve all seen this before, tenfold of times, the progression of the narrative couldn’t feel more formulaic. I won’t bother to list it here, if you’ve seen it or will see it, you will know what I’m talking about. It’s tragic, this film had so much going for it, but as it goes on the uniqueness falls away and lays the ground to familiarity. To me it feels like two completely different movies, it’s like the producer let the production team do whatever they wanted, and then in the middle of production noticed they were trying to be original, and handed them the list of do’s and don’ts in Disney animation. It’s unflatteringly apparent, this was a film about the loneliness and romantic illusions of a robot cleaning trash, and ended up as a “connect the dots” Disney romantic film, with the occasional action scene and unmotivated prick bad guy in the way.

I guess I’m a bit mean, the film still has many saving graces, like fantastic art design and inspired choice of music. The ruins and remains of earth have never looked better, and the design of the robots look great and realistic, the contrast between the design of Eve and Wall-E is good, the cinematography really adds to the story and emotion. Even though the film does take an unfortunate turn, you do feel emotionally connected to the robots throughout the film, and the end does give a slight feeling of satisfaction. I’m not really sure exactly what Wall-E has to say, but it does feel like the creators took their time to develop themes. I guess its life affirming, like everything else this damn production company puts out. As said, there isn’t much dialogue, but the major part of it is provided by Jeff Garlin, who I love and respect, so while I feel the dialogue isn’t very welcome, it couldn’t have been provided by a better person, so cheers for that.

In the end though, I would say Wall-E is a significantly successful film, and probably one of the best Disney/Pixar animations I’ve ever seen. It’s sad though, as it could have been so much better. At the end of the film I did feel slightly disappointed, I don’t know why though, the film turned out to be better than I expected. I guess because parts of this was absolutely fantastic, and I was wanting more, but kept being let down as the film progressed. Still, I would recommend this to anyone, although it does seem that someone in Pixar things doing things too differently will hurt our brains.