A- From the Frogboy
My new personal preference of Pixar films is as follows:
The Incredibles (A+), Ratatouille (A), WALL-E (A-), Finding Nemo (A-), Monsters, Inc. (B), Toy Story 2 (B), Toy Story (B-), A Bug's Life (C).
So yes, I loved Wall-E! I just liked Brad Bird's Incredibles and Ratatouille a little more, but that's all really apples and oranges. They are all different genre films that happen to be animated and from the same company. To compare them much more than that would be to treat animation as a genre - which it is not.
The message in this film is indeed heavy-handed. It doesn't offend me and it's about time a respected company made a film like this for a general audience palette. When Nancy Pelosi is doing PSAs with Newt Gingrich it is clear that something's up with the environment and we need to change the way we live for our future. There is a bit of cheese involved in such a message so that fell to Fred Willard's silliness to play it up instead of trying to cleverly conceal any intentions on Pixar's part.
Nonetheless, to me it was all about the love story. It has been a long time since seeing a film with this level of sweetness and that is what will be remembered most.
So it didn't quite kick Kung Fu Panda butt, but it is projected to make $62.5M this weekend to Panda's $60.2M. It is a busy Pride weekend for many moviegoers in the Bay Area (where this film was made) but I don't think that makes too much of a difference in box office receipts. I ambitiously predicted $70M, but the film still opened strong. I won't likely be seeing a repeat viewing unless my partner uses his own Wall-E eyes to convince me. It's a definite DVD and Blu-ray buy.
Wall-E Coming to home video specially priced at Buy N Large this Christmas!