Movie Review: Wall-E vs Kung Fu Panda

Since I'm still pouting, I needed something to drown out my thoughts so I went to see Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda at the luxurious Cinema de Lux. It's the weekend but it's surprisingly not as busy as I thought it would be. The tickets here are $1 cheaper, why wouldn't anybody come here for movies?



Wall-E

Hundreds of years later, the president of the world is also the CEO of the largest chain of stores. Consumerism has grown to such a ridiculous degree that Earth is heavily polluted and the trash problem is uncontrollable. Humans are forced to leave earth and live in a luxurious space cruiseship. Everyone have their own hovering lazy boys with full holographic panels for all available information, sipping burgers in a cup, everything is so automatic that everyone has grown to a size that resembles a 400 pound maggot.

Meanwhile, earth was occupied by a drone of cleaning up robots that stacked all the junks into a skyscrapers. After a while these robots started to deteriorate and malfunction, all that's left is a little trash compacting robot called Wall-E. Wall-E seems to be intelligent and have a certain personality. Other than his job of compacting trash into cubes and stacking them, he collects different artifacts and robot parts. He also watches an old tape of Hello Dolly in his iPod and long for love.

The cruiseship periodically sends surveyor robot to Earth to evaluate whether the planet is suitable for rehabilitation. Wall-E saw Eve the surveyor bot and fell in love. Eve found vegetation on earth and returned to the cruiseship to report to the captain. The computer system of the cruiseship was programmed to abandon earth altogether, but with Wall-E's and Eve's help, the captain strive to go back and save earth.

What it feels like: A Pixar version of those Japanese environmental anime, what Al Gore's movie could be.

Target Audience: From kids to old folks, the film is actually quite mature

Voice Acting Index: No one I know, but it's well done. Not much dialogue in the beginning. Wall-E and other robots can only say a few words. (You would think technology of robotic speech would be much more advance 1,000 years later.)

Funny Index: Robotic Humor, very light but still entertaining.

Fat Index: It's so not ok to be fat.

Life Lesson: Take care of the environment and earth, you can do anything when you put your mind to it.

Unexplained Mystery: What were they gonna do with the trash towers? Where did their food and water come from in the cruiseship

Grade: B+



Kung Fu Panda

Po is a panda who works in his family noodle shop which his father's eager to train him to take over by revealing to him the secret ingredient in the secret ingredient noodle soup. Po, however, always dreamed of being a kung fu master like Master Shifu and his Furious Five in the training ground on top of the hill. His opportunity came when he stumbled into the Dragon Warrior ceremony and was chosen to be the Dragon Warrior in spite of the dismay of everyone else.

A former student of Master Shifu broke free from jail and was seeking revenge, Master Shifu offered a special training for Po while the Furious Five tried to stop that student and failed. Finally, Po learns the true secret of Kung Fu and saves the day.

What it feels like: A preolympic friendly gesture, or Mulan and every other "believe in yourself" cartoon movie.

Target Audience: Kids mostly

Voice Acting Index: Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu and Angelina Jolie were in it but you almost don't recognize them because there aren't that much dialogue with them.

Funny Index: A lot of physical humor, not high brow but I laughed.

Fat Index: It's okay to be fat just except who you are. Well actually it's good to be fat, you can use your fat as a weapon.

Life Lesson: Believe in yourself, you can do whatever you want in life.

Unexplained Mystery: The villain can escape from that high security prison and fly across a valley, but he can't waste a panda?

Grade: B-