Here’s a great review of WALL-E from a United Methodist web site. An excerpt:

Where the movie really shines—and where it is most daring—is in the two leads. Most of Wall•E is completely free of dialogue, leaving the robots and others to express themselves entirely in body language. Wall•E, a perpetual klutz, comes to resemble the lovable losers of the silent-film era.

It’s the law of averages; one of these days, the folks at Pixar Animation Studios are going to fire a dud. Maybe it will be a first-class stinker; maybe it will just cause people to shrug and say “that’s not up to their usual standard.”

Whenever that may happen, it did not happen in 2008.

WALL-E is great. Just great.

A few advance reviews accused it of being a heavy-handed “message movie,” and maybe even a political polemic. Balderdash. It’s certainly no more of a message movie than “Ratatouille,” and — like “Ratatouille” — it is entertainment first, parable second. For one thing, the cartoonishness of its apocalypse is self-deprecating; it both makes its point and mocks itself for having a point. There’s a major vein of science fiction that has some sort of apocalyptic, look-what-we-did-to-ourselves slant. At its best, it can be poignant; even at its worst, it can be overlooked if the story and characters are good enough.

“WALL-E” goes way beyond good enough. It’s beautiful, and thrilling, and fun. See it as soon as possible.

The short subject, “Presto,” is terrific as well, just as we’ve all come to expect from Pixar.

By the way, I was shocked to see a teaser trailer for “Pink Panther 2″ in which Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau tries to weasel his way in to a screening of … “WALL-E.” “Pink Panther 2″ is from MGM; “WALL-E,” of course, is Disney/Pixar. Why would one studio want to promote the other’s product? I’d read in advance that “WALL-E” incorporates some live-action clips from a well-known movie musical, and so I thought maybe this was some sort of quid-pro-quo in return for MGM giving Disney permission to use the clip.

But I looked it up just now, and the musical in question was produced by 20th Century Fox. MGM had nothing to do with it. So there must be some other explanation.

There aren’t many people who could be interviewed by both Christianity Today and the Onion AV Club and sound completely at home in either place.

I may have to go see Wall*E tomorrow night.

If you have the DVD of “Ratatouille” — and if you don’t, turn off the computer and go get it immediately — don’t miss the little featurette featuring director Brad Bird and the film’s culinary advisor, Thomas Keller. I just watched it for the first time, and it’s great — 15 minutes well-spent. The packaging makes it seem like Bird and Keller are going to be conversing, but that’s not the case at all. Each one is interviewed separately about his craft, and the two interviews are skillfully intercut, with supporting footage, to draw comparisons between what Bird does in the suites of Pixar and what Keller does in the kitchen. Common themes include the importance of having a mentor, the importance of being a mentor, collaboration and what have you. Really nice, and inspirational without being ham-handed.

Of course, I think Brad Bird is a genius anyway, so I guess I’m predisposed to like it.