Sight Unseen Movie Review

Rare is the movie that you love before ever seeing a single frame. But WALL-E is that way for me and I want to get this on the record before I go to see it. That way, when I exclaim that I loved it after walking out of the theater and somebody says something like, "You're only saying that because you just saw it!," I can reply, "No, no, no, no! I loved it before I saw it!" Which is true.

So why would you write a review to record your original Reasons For Loving before you go to the movie and have new reasons crowd the old ones out? Only to note that it is pretty impressive for Pixar to create a sense of beleaguered everyman-ness out of something that isn't even a man. On visuals alone, with its dumpy square body and patchwork parts, WALL-E has me at hello. Gazing up from the front page of today's STYLE Section in the paper, Pixar has coxed a soulful-eyed expression from a pair of binoculars on a swivel. My newsprint WALL-E has all the pathos of a portrait painting. When I finally do go see this movie I won't be sitting in the theater for an hour and a half being slowly convinced to care. Even if the story stinks and the dialog is lame (unlikely), I'll still care about WALL-E. Pixar is Pixar because despite all else it does well, it realizes that a good image, like a good actor, can make you care.