Wall-E

Considering (or maybe because) I make cartoons for a job, I am not very fond of watching them. If they are on tele I quickly change the channel. And all those animated movies that come out don't really appeal to me at all.

The two exceptions are films by Pixar (US) and Studio Ghibli (Japan), who in my opinion are the only ones who get it right. While these two studios make very different films, the thing they have in common is that they put character before everything else. They spend a lot of time developing the central characters so that you can care about them rather than just have a brief giggle at them. Then when you care, they unfold the story, and by then you are hooked.

I saw the latest Pixar movie, Wall-E the other day with work, and thought it was awesome. I was prepared to not like it (partly because robots seemed like an idea that had already been done, and partly because the main character looked like the lovechild of Short Circuit and ET -eww).

But, no, it was great. Amazing depth to such simple characters, so much personality in two little robots who barely speak. And I cried! Twice! It was genuinely touching. And the way it looked, the design and animation was just flawless.

Compared to other recent movies I have seen, like Batman and Hellboy II, this was in a completely different league. Far superior in every way. You can have the highest profile actors, the most expensive and cutting edge effects or CGI, but in the end if you don't care about the characters, what's the point.