The tale of a trash compactor from the future who's desperate for connection isn't just one of Pixar's unlikeliest successes, but its most arresting and prescient.

Much of the film is wonderfully imagined, and there is something utterly winning about this tin can topped with binoculars... It's just a shame that, at the end, it trips itself up with its own SENTIMENTALITE.

Although Wall-E ends with a very apt and moving nod to City Lights, it is in fact Pixar's answer to Modern Times-both a bravura summation of everything the studio is great at and a "You ain't seen nothing yet!" statement of purpose.

Clever and endearing. I would not call this essential viewing but I enjoyed it more than I expected.