Director: Andrew Stanton, U, 103min

Voices: Ben Burtt, Paul Eiding, Sigourney Weaver

On general release

He’s a tin box on caterpillar tracks with binoculars for eyes, a trash compactor with a big heart and a taste for the corniest of Hollywood musicals – he is WALL-E, a little robot who looks like the lovechild of R2D2 and ET, the star of a film that promises to have the pop-cultural impact of Star Wars and ET: The Extra Terrestrial combined.

WALL-E is the latest film from the supremely creative team at the Pixar studio. Directed by Stanton, the man behind Finding Nemo, Pixar’s biggest hit to date, WALL-E represents a massive leap forward in digital animation technology. It is possible, as we follow the lonely little robot pottering around an earth scarred by neglect and scorched by toxic dust clouds, to forget that we are watching an animation at all, so obsessively detailed and lovingly rendered is the film.

The last robot left on earth, WALL-E has spent the past 700 years industriously clattering around, clearing up the mess that humankind left behind when they evacuated the planet. The environmental and anticonsumerist messages are unavoidable, but, such is the quality of the writing, the lightness of touch and the beautifully judged physical comedy, the film never feels preachy or didactic.

Sifting though humanity’s detritus, WALL-E has been studying mankind. His very favourite bits of rubbish are saved and treasured in his collection. Most special of all is an old Betamax tape of Hello Dolly! The song Put on Your Sunday Clothes becomes a recurring motif in the film, and when WALL-E finally gets to meet another robot, the iPod-sleek space probe EVE, WALL-E tries to impress her by playing it to her.

Like ET, this film is unashamedly sentimental and completely disarming. The story of a robot falling in love and pursuing the object of his affections across the galaxy to win her, it is a heartswelling journey of discovery. And through WALL-E’s goggle eyes, we see the best and the worst of what humanity could become.

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