Wall-E is the last of a series of automated robots left behind by a huge retail giant a la Wal mart or Tesco to clean up all the mountains of rubbish left behind by human civilisation in their quest for ever more goods and even more convenience. BuyLarge owned huge superstores, banks, fast food outlets, and more as can be seen in the ruins amidst the mountains of rubbish. The rubbish build up got so bad, that BuyLarge's holiday arm built several space cruise liners and took humanity ff to the stars for a five year cruise while the Wall_E's cleaned up the rubbish. Several hundred years later, humanity still hasn't returned, and all the Wall-E units save one seem to have broken down, and its no wonder. No one remained to do any repairs! Nor did humanity have a reason to return. The bots could collect the trash, and compress it, but what to do with it afterwards? The answer apparently was sculpture, as some of those skyscrapers are not buildings at all, but carefully stacked bricks made of compressed trash.

Things are set to change however, thanks to a chance meeting with an unknown robot that is much more advanced than he. Her name is Eve, and she is on a mission. She doesn't know what the purpose is, so flits about scanning everything in sight. Wall_E is smitten, so takes out his most treasured find, a small plant in a boot. This doesn't have quite the effect he had hoped for, seeming to send Eve catatonic. He tries desperately to awaken her, caring for her and being by her side, until one day, the ship that dropped her off, returns to take her home. What follows is as much as action packed romantic comedy as it is a social commentary on our modern lifestyle, done with a deft wit and stunning animation techniques.

Watching it in itself is a sheer pleasure. Pixar's Toy story was dazzling for its great use of CGI, but this takes it way past what I have ever seen achieved before by this studio. The picture is not flat with a trapunto 3 D effect, but rather the pictures show real texture, and the way the light falls seems incredibly natural. In several places, including close ups of Wall-E's metal body, you would be forgiven for thinking you were looking at a digitally filmed real object rather than one cooked up by animation programmers on a computer. The result is simply breathtakingly entrancing, so much so that despite NO spoken dialogue during the first 15 minutes or so of the film, and that we were in a cinema jam packed with kids, there was not even the smallest peep. It was mesmerisingly awesome to behold, and the unfolding action spoke by itself, riveting even the smallest tot. The panoramas shown were vividly detailed, making this a must see experience on the big screen, as it will be vastly reduced in impact even on the largest screened TV.

***Note, this review is film only as it is out in cinemas only at the moment, and not available as a DVD***