We don't see any of this, or meet the ship's captain (voiced by Jeff Garlin), until we're well into "WALL-E." The first 30 minutes are pure bittersweet magic. Awaiting the word that Earth is once again habitable, the ship spends year after year in space, sustaining the last remaining humans-blobby, pampered creatures who never get out of their whiz-bang flying loungers long enough to look at what they've become. The main spaceship is the Axiom, akin to a Holland America liner the size of Holland. In addition to running the robot cleanup concession, Buy n Large owns a fleet of spaceship cruisers offering refuge for the last remaining humans. Humankind has given in to the pernicious influence of a single global corporation, Buy n Large (in digital snippets Fred Willard plays its hearty, slippery CEO). "WALL-E" peers 700 years into the future and sees an uninhabitable trash heap. Stanton's co-writer is Jim Reardon, a longtime contributor to and director on " The Simpsons." The two sensibilities fold together seamlessly, and while the second half of the film is less amazing and more familiar than the first, it's nonetheless a gratifying reminder that in some sectors of the global entertainment industry quality remains job one. The director and co-writer, Andrew Stanton, was the primary force behind Pixar's all-time box office champ, "Finding Nemo." "WALL-E" is the sort of picture an ambitious talent makes after he's delivered an enormous hit. And while I thoroughly enjoyed "Kung Fu Panda," "WALL-E" is a transporting experience. Without being cheap or ham-handed about it, "WALL-E" presents a grimmer future for our planet than "An Inconvenient Truth," and its strains of comedy and pathos are unusually subtle for G-rated animation.
I'm not sure if Disney's nervous, overcompensating ad tag-line is quite accurate ("the most fun you'll have at the movies this summer!"). The latest achievement from Pixar Animation Studios is the best science-fiction film so far this year, the best romance so far this year and the best American studio film so far this year.
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