UPDATED! Weitere WALL•E -Rezensionen lassen die Erwartungen weiterhin in Rekordhöhe schweben

Hände hoch und Bestnoten her!

So langsam tröpfeln sie rein, die Rezensionen zum neusten Pixar-Geniestreich WALL•E, und sie klingen wirklich großartig. Hier einige spoilerfreie Ausschnitte, auf Links klicken passiert weiterhin unter eigener Gefahr.

"perhaps Pixar's most romantic film yet -- a beautiful sci-fi tale complete with all the feel-good vibes and fantastic, cutting-edge visuals we've come to expect from a film wearing the Pixar name. Despite a few small bumps in the galaxy, WALL-E can easily claim a spot up top on a list featuring the best films of the year so far, and it will surely go down as one of Pixar's most memorable -- because it's also one of their most personal."
- Cinematical

Pixar's ninth consecutive wonder of the animated world is a simple yet deeply imagined piece of speculative fiction. Despite the decade-plus since its inception, "WALL-E" is a film very much of its moment, although in a cheeky, uninsistent way; it has plenty to say, but does so in a light, insouciant manner that allows you to take the message or leave it on the table. Adroitly borrowing from many artistic sources and synthesizing innumerable influences, Pixar stalwart Andrew Stanton's first directorial outing since "Finding Nemo" walks a fine line between the rarefied and the immediately accessible as it explores new territory for animation, yet remains sufficiently crowd-pleasing to indicate celestial B.O. for this G-rated summer offering.
- Variety

This is getting to sound like a broken record: Pixar Animation Studios has just topped itself. Again. In "Wall-E," following the sublime culinary slapstick of "Ratatouille," Pixar and director/writer Andrew Stanton -- officially the studio's ninth employee way back when -- have spun a whimsical sci-fi fantasy about robots 800 years into the future that has all the heart, soul, spirit and romance of the very best silent movies 60 years ago.
[...]
The film is so clever and sophisticated that you worry, slightly, that it may be too clever to connect with mainstream audiences. But like those worries last year that having a rat for a hero in "Ratatouille" might throw off audiences, "Wall-E" is so sweet and funny that the multitudes will undoubtedly surrender to its many charms.

- Hollywood Reporter

Update:

Die guten Rezensionen nehmen kein Ende, und von "sehr gut" über "bester Film des Jahres" bis zu Vergleichen mit Kino-Meilensteinen und absoluten Klassikern ist alles dabei. Hier ein paar Auszüge:

While perfection can be characterized in many ways, there’s only one way to define perfect in the world of film: a picture that has everything you could ask for with nothing you could cut. Though this is a highly unlikely proposition, “WALL-E” has become 2008’s first perfect film and one of the best Pixar projects of all time.

- HollywoodChicago

the latest Disney-Pixar collaboration deserves to be ranked among the greatest science-fiction films.
Second [...] "WALL-E" is the finest Buster Keaton film in 80 years.
The movie's opening recalls the heyday of silent comedy because little WALL-E has no one to talk to.
[...]youngsters likely will find "WALL-E" more appealing than last summer's "Ratatouille." From the way he furrows his eyepieces to all his preverbal beeps and chortles, WALL-E is an adorable character even though he looks like scrap metal. WALL-E owes a lot to R2-D2 in this regard - more than you realize. His "voice" is provided by Ben Burtt, sound designer on all six "Star Wars" movies.
"WALL-E" is so much more than a cute robot cartoon, of course. Even by Pixar's Olympian standards, "WALL-E" touches the stars in artistry and entertainment value. Each frame is so dense with detail - particularly the photorealism of the Earth segments - that you know freeze frame buttons will get a workout once this hits DVD. [...]
But the film's most breathtaking moments come in the quiet, comic grace of the opening. If you can imagine Buster Keaton as a small box with binoculars for eyes and tank treads for legs - and "WALL-E" makes this easy to imagine - then the movie's first half represents the purest visual storytelling since movies started to talk.

- Jeffrey Westhoff

Wer bei Westhoffs letztem Satz bereits denkt, dass WALL•E möglicherweise sogar die kühnsten Erwartungen übertrifft, der sollte sich mal durchlesen, was Erik Childress von Efilmcritic.com zu sagen hat:

Don't Be Afraid. You Won't Be Alone Calling This A Masterpiece!
[...]
In fact, dreaming up any kind of monologue to describe it’s brilliance or to exasberate its sheen artistic value can never do the justice that your own senses will be able to bask in starting from the animated short that precedes it and right through it’s final audible sendoff. The words “genius” and “masterpiece” are all too flaunted about in modern cinema history, but if you don’t walk out of WALL-E uttering those terms or some variation on them then you must be on the way to your day job as an extra on the set of Idiocracy.
[...]
Not since Titanic will you have heard two prospective partners cry out each other’s names with as much longing (and frequency) and if there’s any karma, fate, or pure love out there to believe in than WALL-E will equal its attendance and then some.

- E-Filmcritic

WALL•E habe es verdient mehr einzuspielen als Titanic? Schön wäre es, wenn es endlich einmal geschehen würde, aber ich wage es zu bezweifeln... Dafür ist das Publikum leider zu unberechenbar (um nicht zu sagen "ignorant"), befürchte ich... In seiner Kritik vergleicht Childress WALL•E übrigens noch mit E.T., Star Wars und 2001. Wie hoch können diese Kritiken meine Erwartungen noch schüren?

With its lack of dialogue, inventive visual comedy and satirical view of working life, the first half of the movie could be an animated addendum to Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times," which also used music and sound effects but no dialogue.

- Suburban Chicago News

Just when you thought Pixar Animation couldn't possibly top their last great achievement, they've created a piece of artistic storytelling that's so above and beyond anything that's come before that it truly deserves the audacious label of "pure genius."
[...]
With mere synthesized bleeps and bloops and the occasional word, sound FX expert Benn Burtt has created a character that stands up not only to some of Pixar's most beloved, but also classic Disney characters going back to Mickey Mouse.
[...]
Stanton and Pixar have achieved a new plateau in their craft, creating what's destined to be a beloved classic, right up there with the likes of "Snow White," "Bambi" and "Cinderella," and one that similarly will be held close to many hearts for decades to come.

- ComingSoon


Noch Fragen?


UPDATE 2:

Der Blockbuster-Sommer legt gerade erst so richtig los, da wird bereits die erste Oscar-Diskussion losgetreten:

Let's get the insane, over-the-top hyperbole out of the way early - I love Wall-E. I adore the character and the film that tells his story. Over the course of our lives there are a few times when you leave a theater with the absolute, unshakable confidence that you will not only see the movie you just watched again but repeatedly and until the day you die. It's the way we all felt upon leaving Star Wars, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, etc. There are movies that simply become a part of your life. Wall-E is a movie like that for me.
[...]
Wall-E is not only the best movie of the year by galaxy-sized leaps and bounds, it's one of my favorite movies in a long, long time.
[...]
While other studios are shooting animated fish in a barrel by keeping things simple, writer/director Andrew Stanton has made the most ambitious film of the year. It's a science fiction film with a lead character who doesn't speak at all. But Wall-E is just proof that the old line that "The larger the risk, the larger the reward" couldn't be more true. And I haven't even touched on the fact that Wall-E couldn't be a more beautiful film to look at. This is as large a leap forward in filmmaking as when we first saw Woody and Buzz in Toy Story. Wall-E has an Oscar-worthy screenplay but is so stunning visually that it would work even it was a completely silent film. A Best Cinematography nomination isn't out of the question. Honestly, neither is a Best Picture nomination. Wall-E is certainly that good. But will audiences embrace it? Will they take a chance on a non-speaking robot? God, I hope so.

Diese Rezension stammt von der Webseite The Dead Bolt. Nun, das nenne ich doch Mal Ironie des Schicksals. Denn wie heißt nochmal Disneys nächster Animationsfilm? Richtig, Bolt... Und nach einem solchen Kritikerliebling wie WALL•E kann sich der Albinoschäferhund noch so sehr anstrengen, im direkten Vergleich wird er wie eine angestaubte Wasserleiche wirken (nämlich kurios, aber untalentiert).

Wie dem auch sei... Die Hoffnungen auf mehrere Oscars für WALL•E, die in der letzten Rezi ausgesprochen werden sind - allein den Oscar-Regeln nach zu urteilen - nicht unrealistisch. Abendfüllende Animationsfilme können rein theoretisch in jeder Kategorie (außer bei den Kurzfilmen und den Dokumentationen) nominiert werden, auch in der Kategorie "Bester Darsteller" (siehe auch diesen Artikel der NY Times), in der dann die Sprecher prämiert werden könnten. Wie uns die Geschichte jedoch zeigt, werden Animationsfilme üblicherweise (außerhalb ihrer eigenen Kategorien) bestenfalls für Musik, Songs und in den Tonkategorien nominiert. Es sei denn, Pixar übertraf sich Mal wieder selbst, dann gibt es sogar eine Drehbuch-Nominierung.

Somit ist - bisher - nicht an einen Oscar-Regen zu glauben... Sollte WALL•E jedoch sämtliche Box-Office-Rekorde zerkleinern, die ihm in den Weg kommen, dann können wir noch einmal darüber reden...

• Siehe auch: Meine Rezension