Honea Express

I spent the better part of the day reading various reviews of Disney-Pixar’s WALL-E. It’s not that I was looking for them, they found me. They were everywhere. Reviews written by CNN, Yahoo, MSNBC, New York Times, USA Today, and the leading papers across the nation wrote of WALL-E with such prose and poetry that I felt like I was reading a high school girl’s diary. These were words of wonder and love and I feared that perhaps they would build my hopes too high. I was afraid they would make me expect too much, and subsequently fall too hard. I read the reviews with growing anticipation, and braced myself for the inevitable.

It never came.

The movie is everything they said it was. It is a wonder of animation. It is a tender story of love and loyalty. It is a commentary on human nature vs. Mother Nature. It showcases the apathy of mankind with interest and concern. It preaches, but it is not preachy.

There were lessons, but they weren’t there for us to learn, because they were lessons we know too well.

When I saw Happy Feet I left the theater wanting to march up to a penguin and kick it. It went so far with its agenda as to anger those that agree with it. WALL-E went so far with its agenda that it inspired hope.

It’s funny, the film was in production for years, yet the message it sends couldn’t be more timely. It is a time for hope, a time for change, and a time for action.

I find it telling that there were only two major papers in the free world that disliked the movie and one of them is in Arizona, as is someone else that runs on an agenda opposed to the messages that WALL-E embodies.

I told you it was timely.

The theater, which showed the film digitally as opposed to film (incredible), was filled. There were infants, toddlers, teens, parents, grandparents. It is both a family film and a date flick. There were two things I found telling about the quality of the movie, a) a packed theater filled with kids was stone silent during the first 30 minutes of the film despite there being little or no dialogue, and b) they clapped. I love being in a theater where people clap as the credits roll. There is no one to hear them, no bows to be taken, but the people clap because they have been entertained and they have appreciation to show.

WALL-E deserves it.

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