Through the melding of speculative fantasy, drama and science fiction, WALL*E somehow develops emotions and a thought process during his long stint trapped alone on our discarded planet. Well, he is not exactly all by himself—the decidedly masculine Waste Allocation Load Lifter—Earth Class has a crawly cockroach for friendship (hey, it was either that or Keith Richards, and Richards is currently otherwise engaged somewhere on the Caribbean Sea), and a videotape of Hello Dolly!, the 1969 musical, for solace. Intrigued by the happy, skipping and singing human beings in movie, WALL*E longs to connect; specifically by holding hands, as do the merrily dancing man and woman he watches night after night.

One day, as the dutiful dust-buster is doing his job, a magnificently massive spacecraft comes crashing down, cudgel-like, on top of WALL*E, who quickly digs himself a life-saving grave just in time. Carefully extricating himself from the rent earth and scattered stones, WALL*E emerges in time to see EVE descending from the ship—and she, a delicate, egglike vision of beauty with penguin-flipper arms and a black face with LED eyes, sees him.

Let's just say it's not love at first sight for both of them. WALL*E is instantly smitten, and in his sweet puppy-dog-meets-R2-D2 sort of way, he goes bounding up to her, all but flopping ears and wagging tail. EVE, a highly advanced probe unit sent to Earth by the space-bound humans to see if there is any sustainable life, immediately tries to end WALL*E's existence by blasting him with her formidable built-in laser guns. WALL*E's wily, though, and he hides from EVE, watching her longingly from a safe distance until he slowly but surely gains her trust.

WALL*E, whose design was inspired by Luxo (the Pixar mascot in their logo) and a pair of old binoculars, is boxy and sturdy, while EVE (voiced by Elissa Knight), whose feminine figure was suggested by the rounded angles of the Macintosh line of products, is spherical and ethereal. Somehow the square peg fits into the round circle (in a totally G-rated manner, I hasten to add), and WALL*E and EVE become inseparable. He takes her to the little trailer where he lives and keeps all of his prized possessions plucked from dump sites—VCR and video tapes, a plastic spork, a potted green plant, light bulb assortments—and they hold hands and have a grand time.

That is, they have a grand time until it's time for EVE to return to the humans' holding pattern and report her findings: WALL*E's thriving plant is proof there's sustainable life on Earth, and that means it's time for the people to come back. Following her into space and onto the hovercraft (akin to a giant—I mean really giant—floating cruise ship), WALL*E runs into trouble that's almost too big for one little robot.

Adorable androids

While the adoring androids don't exactly have dialogue, they do speak each other's names in the most endearing and heartstring-tugging ways. WALL*E says "EVE" with devotion, while EVE, in her sweet, computerized soprano, returns his sentiments with a breathy "Waaaaalllleeee ..." WALL*E is even cuter when he's saying his own name. With each inflection, their intentions and emotions are made clear, which is a real testament to Burtt, whose Academy Award-winning sound design for films like Star Wars, E.T., and Raiders of the Lost Ark (not to mention voices for E.T. and Chewbacca) automatically endears him to science fiction fans worldwide.

In spite of what you may have, er, heard, WALL*E is not a silent film. Sure, it's obvious that writer/director Andrew Stanton was inspired by physical 1920s-era actor-comedians such as Buster Keaton and Charles Chaplin, but aside from the electronic exclamations, there's also good (or bad, as the case may be) old-fashioned English spoken by the Homo sapiens faction (voiced mainly by John Ratzenberger, Jeff Garlin, Kathy Najimy and Fred Willard) and the in-limbo luxury liner's HAL-like computer brain (voiced by Sigourney Weaver).

WALL*E is cinematic soma for the masses when it's just our sad-eyed hero, his sexy sidekick and their cockroach companion; but when the humans come in and the existential romance turns into more conventional chase, adventure and peril A to Z, the movie loses a chunk of its charm and lapses into a lull.

Accomplished in painstaking 3-D animation stamped all over in Pixar's signature style, the movie looks absolutely amazing at all times. The garbage-gunked Earth is ooky, WALL*E's little hovel is homey, space is sparkling, and the humans' high-tech floating homestead is immaculate. Taking visual cues from some of the most memorable science fiction films of our time (2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, Silent Running, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and Star Wars, to name a few), WALL*E is without question a visual feast worthy of awards and accolades.

As long as WALL*E stays subtle—which is most of the time—it's riveting. People aside, this G-rated movie truly does offer something for everyone across all age, race and gender divides.