DVD OF THE WEEK

WALL-E ****
Dir: Andrew Stanton
Voices: Bret Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Sigourney Weaver

Yes, the cute robot movie – who woulda thought? I, for one, avoided it at the cinema. After all, a single robot stuck on a deserted planet doing sweet cartoony things seems like a vision of purgatory…
But, Trust Pixar. If there has been a guiding mantra in animation over the past decade or more it is that – Trust Pixar. They were the people who kicked the new computer animation format to the top of the commercial ladder with the wonderful Toy Story, and pretty much every film of theirs since then, A Bug's Life, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, Cars, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, et al, has pushed the envelope and taken risks with the format rather than relying on easy repetition. Amazingly (and what a pleasure it is) only one of those films has spawned a sequel.
And, again, with WALL-E, the studio take huge risks, mainly with that story bit of the equation. But, just as The Incredibles took the chance of showing the dull domesticity of its heroes while allowing time for their character's to develop, WALL-E is so sure-footed with its opening forty minutes, which are virtually wordless and do indeed follow a single robot stuck on a deserted planet, that it can stand along the greatest of pure cinematic filmmaking, bits of Chaplin, the 'Dawn of Man” sequence in Kubrick's 2001, or last year's incredible unspoken beginning to the epic There Will Be Blood.
That the film slips a little towards sentimentality in its latter moments is a shame but barely detracts from the sheer joy of discovery that comes earlier. This is smart stuff and director Andrew Staunton is very good at it (having previously helmed Nemo and co-written most of the others).
I haven't checked to see if kids dig this as much as previous Pixar outings, but as a sceptical adult I thought it was just dandy.

Eagle Eye (**) is an extremely stupid and irritating film. It also contains a number of bang-on action sequences and – early on – generates a fair amount of tension. In it Shia LaBeouf (adding a goatee to his acting chops and as irritating as ever) and Michelle Monaghan (duller than usual) are framed as terrorists by a mysterious phone voice and, on the run from every authority in the universe, are coerced into carrying out an assassination plot. And while the thriller aspect is convoluted enough it is also completely nonsensical, particularly once the phone voice is finally revealed. That, plus the frequent stops for dull repetition of the central character's worries and pasts, makes a bloated sprawl from a picture that would have been better lean and mean.

Also running from authorities are the rather more likeable heroes of Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (**) who are also suspected terrorists (though in their case because of a misguided attempt to use an elaborate bong in a plane toilet). Unfortunately the film comes across as a rather lamer reprise of their first outing and the best bits, mainly involving Neil Patrick Harris, are just riffs on stuff from that earlier film.

Moving on to Chinese-themed films, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (**) is a definite let-down. Despite some impressive fights and effects this suffers in the character department (I'll ignore the plot - it's as serviceable as previous Mummy films) by sidelining Brendan Fraser's adventurer Rick and recasting Rachael Weiss' character. Instead we get Rick's charisma-free zone of a son and American Mario Bello pretending to be English. The results are very ho-hum.

Meanwhile Jackie Chan and Jet Li meet in The Forbidden Kingdom (***) which possibly put off many by appearing to be a Crouching Tiger style martial arts pic. It's not. It's an American adventure yarn about a bullied kid who finds a mythical way to legendary China where he is – sure nuff – the Chosen One. It's all good clean fun and mainly aimed at kids, an old formula but one revitalized by its mythical Chinese setting.