(andPOP) - Animation fans seem to agree that Pixar films fall into one of three categories. Category 1 is the undisputed classics: the Toy Story films and The Incredibles. Category 2 is the rest of their non-Cars filmography, ranging from disputed classics like Ratatouille and Finding Nemo to the underrated Monsters Inc. and A Bug's Life. While wonderful, these movies lack a certain je ne sais quoi that keep them from unanimously ranking among the studio's best.
Category 3 is Cars.
WALL-E, I am sorry to report, belongs firmly in the second category. While many viewers will justifiably herald the film as one of the decade's best, an equal number will be vaguely unsatisfied, wondering how the perfection achieved in the first half misses a payoff that's equally brilliant by such a narrow margin.
I am, of course, criticizing on a relative scale. WALL-E is still better than anything else you're likely to see this summer, and possibly the best you'll see all year. Its ambitions are sky-high, and - unlike I Am Legend, Transformers, War of the Worlds, or any one of the numerous megabudgeted sequels involving Spider-Man, George Lucas, the Wachowski brothers and/or pirates released in the last half-decade - it actually reaches them. Its audacity is evident not because it succeeds as a message movie (although it does), but because it's a largely silent one; a Chaplin-inspired romance with a mechanical cast "voiced" by Pixar producer Elissa Knight and Star Wars legend Ben Burtt. There are English-speakers, certainly, but the film's most recognizable castmember has the near-anonymous role of a ship's computer, while said ship's autopilot (voiced by screen reading software) and the live-action CEO of the corporation which screwed up the planet (Fred Willard) seem to have as many lines as the legitimate "human" characters (all three of them). For the most part, writer/director Andrew Stanton has created a movie anchored by just two and a half players: the sleek, iPod-like EVE and the clumsy, box-like WALL-E. And a cockroach.
On the surface this appears to be an anti-corporate, pro-environmental film. And perhaps it is. But the core idea, about a lone robot, required humans to get off the planet, and so the environmental message actually comes off as secondary. And yes, a corporation was responsible for turning the Hudson river into a tar pit and then evacuating the planet as a quick-fix measure, but how many players can believably get humans off Earth? It's either corporations or the government. And everything that happens to humans once WALL-E discovers their ship exists, really, to push his relationship with EVE along.
Obviously there's nothing I can say praising the film which others haven't already. The art direction is jaw-dropping. The plot is logical and creative. The characters are endearing. The film's satire (if you're looking for it) is razor-sharp. Thomas Newman's score deserves an Oscar. And it includes the first original Pixar vocal track (cowritten and performed by Peter Gabriel) not written by Randy Newman.
But...
Well, there's a "but." There is no "but" in The Incredibles. There's no "but" in the Toy Story films. Heck, there's no "but" in Monster's Inc. or A Bug's Life. There is, unfortunately, a "but" in WALL-E.
For me the "but" came at the end, during an artificially manufactured and entirely pointless dramatic sequence. For others it occurs when seeing the first humans. For still others it's the coldness inherent in robots - Cartoon Brew's Jerry Beck, one of the most respected historians in the business, is on record saying he thoughtKung Fu Panda was superior because he couldn't connect with the characters. For whatever reason, WALL-E will not be ranked among Pixar's best by everyone.
It remains, however, a movie you should see, because there's nothing else quite like it. Not even Chaplin. And I've seen City Lights.
