WALL-E and EVE rouse the humans on the Buy N Large ship from the consumerist brainwashing that has turned their flesh and blood to gelatin. Stanton told me last week, "My writing premise was: 'Irrational love defeats life's programming.' " That premise wouldn't work if viewers fixated on the spectacles of excess and loss surrounding the two lead characters in space and on Earth.
But the movie does work, spectacularly. The sudden appearance of English-speaking human characters on the Buy N Large ship (The Axiom) paradoxically intensifies our bond to the lead robots. And, eventually, to the supporting robots, too: A squad of robot rejects on The Axiom aid WALL-E and EVE and some stirred-up humans in their righteous rebellion against corporate goals. In an uproarious way, it reminded me that it was the misfits in The Sorrow and the Pity who did the most to help the French Resistance.
Stanton finds islets of privacy for WALL-E and EVE where they can share fleeting intimacies though the rest of the world changes behind them. In short, he makes the film like a true romantic - and ends up, in cartoon form, with one of the truest movie romances since The Way We Were.
