Master Dilettante

Alas, the three-day weekend is almost at an end. At least I caught two flicks, gorged myself at two BBQs and generally relaxed. Here’s what I saw:

Wall-E

Caution: Spoilers below!

I had no knowledge of Wall-E before walking into the theatre. I vaguely recall seeing a remote-controlled Wall-E robot with a bunch of dancers on TV at an NBA playoffs game. I held the notion in my head that Wall-E must be some sort of E.T.-like film with Wall-E the protagonist among a number of mischievous and/or wide-eyed children, likely engaged in domestic comedy or a little light adventure together.

My presumption was wrong.

Wall-E is the latest animated adventure from Pixar, starring the endearing, whimsical Wall-E (which stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth Class). Wall-E, essentially, is an autonomous, intelligent, mobile trash compactor, persevering at his job on Earth 700 years after the accumulation of environmental waste has left the planet uninhabitable due to toxicity. He makes a surprising discovery with great promise to the human species, and this discovery, along with a robotic romantic interest, lead Wall-E on an action adventure.

As I’ve come to expect from Pixar, the animation was phenomenally good — many of the panoramas look like photographs. The animation was so good that I was extremely revolted by the animated cockroach that becomes Wall-E’s sidekick.

One surprise was that the first half of the movie, it seemed, involved almost no dialog; for a time, I thought the entire film might be devoid of dialog until Wall-E finally found someone with whom to converse.

I don’t recall whether Pixar has been preachy in the past, but I loved the environmental message. I’m not particularly environmentally conscious, although I recycle and, like everyone else, have been bemoaning gas prices these days. While I’ve been trying to catch a rerun of “The Human Footprint” on the National Geographic channel, I’ve become increasingly sensitive lately to the amount of waste I personally generate. I’m alarmed by the amount of food I waste, garbage I generate and even the amount of recyclables I recycle. With this personal anxiety, the environmental message resonated with me.

I also loved the health message. When Wall-E encounters Earth’s survivors on holiday in space, he finds that they’re atrophied, lazy, obese and sustained by liquid diets. I think this condition just might be to be avoided, and I’m going to do some sit-ups after I write this post.

Overall, another fine work from Pixar. I’m not sure it’s as good as the 96% fresh tomatoes reflected on Rotten Tomatoes, but I was pleasantly surprised and thoroughly entertained. I recommend Wall-E.

Wanted

Angelina Jolie, guns and the promise of action? Sign me up!

I didn’t know much about this flick either but expected from the trailers that it would be suitably entertaining. It continues the trend of movies adapted from comic books and graphic novels. Surprisingly, Angelina’s is not the main character, although she’s clearly the second most important character. Instead, Wanted stars relative unknown James McEvoy as Wesley Gibson, a cube-dwelling, down-trodden drone — surely a familiar archetype to those of us in the Valley. (The only other film in which I’ve seen McEvoy is The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, in which he plays Mr. Tumnus the faun).

The plot is the basic formulaic one that I’ve always been drawn to in both books and movies: The relatively unassuming discovers latent talents transforming his or her life into one of heroism. I don’t think I’ll ever give up on these childhood fancies, and why should I? I think of Harry Potter, Jack Ryan, Belgarion, Lessa. Yes, I lead a rich interior life at times . . . . In Wanted, Wesley Gibson discovers his genetic and familial heritage as a “good” assassin. This discovery leads him through action, intrigue and a few plot twists.

As with most action-adventure films, you’ll have to disregard a relatively thin plot and suspend disbelief at most of the physical feats. If you can do that, you will, like I did, be entertained for a couple of hours. Rotten Tomatoes, by the way, reflects 72% fresh tomatoes.