Thursday, July 10, 2008

I saw Wall-E and laughed. Once.

I was really excited to see Wall-E, but the BF would not allow himself to be dragged to it. In retrospect, this was a bad sign. The BF loves movies, and if there's one he won't see, well, it's got to really suck.

I ended up going with Diego, and we sat anxiously awaiting this cinematic masterpiece that's been hailed as everything from an Oscar contender to a presidential one.

What we ended up with for our hard-earned $10.25 was not quite a steaming turd, but was something pretty close. (spoiler alert...if you're actually going to see this thing).

The movie centers around Wall-E, the last remaining robot on a post-apocalyptic Earth. He's a miniature short-circuit-robot-cum-trash-compacter who cannibalizes the bodies of his fallen comrades for spare parts and soothes his presumed feelings of loneliness by hoarding.

In this, he's one of a long line of Disney OCD sufferers. There's Ariel, who hoards flotsam in a special cave that is eventually violated by her father in a fit of reverse-Oedipal rage.

There's Mary Poppins, who keeps god-knows-how-much-crap in that carpet bag and gets far too much enjoyment out of cleaning. And don't even mention Peter Pan, whose hoard consists of stolen boys ("Lost?" Bah!).

Anyway, Wall-E acquires a pet. It's a cockroach. Oh, and by the way: the cockroach actually introduces Wall-E to his girlfriend.

If I had been asked to design a robot that would cleanse the planet of garbage, this would not have been possible because I would certainly design the robot to squish all the cockroaches. I happen to think they are dirty and potentially disease-bearing. But unfortunately, not a lot of people think like me, and so I was watching the movie with some annoyance, until Wall-E (clumsy robot) runs over his little friend.

CRUNCH.

I laughed for about 5 minutes, even after it because obvious that this was a totally inappropriate response (most people gasped in shock) and that I was embarrassing Diego.

"I think you're the only person in the theater who laughed at that," he said, thankfully not adding (out loud) "you freak."

Can I help it that I was legitimately entertained by the one moment of honesty in a movie that insists that plants can survive in space without cellular damage and--even more ludicrous--that cockroaches make great pets that can help you meet chicks? A generation of little boys may grow up thinking that the way to a woman's heart is with bugs.

As the Brady Bunch once demonstrated, this is clearly incorrect. And I just want to help! Spread the luv, people--that's what I do.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

its a cartoon! It's supposed to be inane.

Anonymous said...

I found it funny

Anonymous said...

wicked!