The amazing story behind the studio is a classic struggle to survive, no one believed in it, but by the end of their first film, (Toy Story) they proved everyone wrong and has never, ever failed. That's right, not once. Pixar is nominated for huge awards in the animation and general film industry every, single year. The best way to describe how this feels is to compare Pixar to the New England Patriots. They both have more fans than any other team combined, but one has to wonder "Doesn't it get boring cheering for a team that always wins?" (Ok, except for the Super Bowl . . . What? Shut up!) Not that I am Pixar-bashing, but people are told this studio can do no wrong and they believe it and proceed to see their films 5 times in the theater, buy all the toys, and not shut up about how cute it all was at the water cooler. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Pixar is the Versace of animation, odds are you could find a close knock off for way less, but you feel you need it for the name on the tag.

Now that I got that out of the way, I will actually discuss the film at hand: Wall-E. This adorable little robot has been getting crap since the first screen shots appeared on the internet. "He looks like ET!", "He looks like Johnny 5!" The fact of the matter is Wall-E is a great character design and has the necessary parts so that he may show emotion through body language because he can't really speak. His eyes are like ET and Johnny 5's because they have to be the most expressive part of his little robot body. Wall-E looks like a robot, so stop complaining.

Wall-E was sent to Earth 700 years ago along with thousands if not millions of other Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth class robots in order to clean the endless amounts of garbage the human race as accumulated. While these robots are on Earth cleaning up our mess, the human race has been lounging on a ship in space. The whole idea is that the clean up is on a 5 year plan after which mankind will be able to return to Earth. When this obviously doesn't pan out humans on the ship evolve into a race of big fatties who can no longer use their legs. I know, it sounds awful, but given the circumstances one cannot disagree this isn't what would actually happen. (Even though up until this point much of the story and imagery looks suspiciously like that of the Mike Judge film Idiocracy.)

Every so often people in space will shoot an EVE robot, (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator,) to Earth in search of any sign life can once again thrive. Wall-E, a somewhat hopeless romantic, falls for Eve, but her mission intervenes when a small plant is discovered and she is taken back to the space cruise ship. Wackiness ensues as Wall-E chases the love of his life throughout the universe.

I like Pixar, but I don't love it. I like John Lasseter, but I don't love him. I was honestly expecting Wall-E to disappoint me as Cars did a few years ago and, much like M. Night Shyamalan, just get worse and worse and more crazy. This one saved Lasseter in my mind. The animation was beautiful, almost any excuse to get Pixar to animate the depths of the ocean or outer space is a good one for me. The characters are all creative and fun and, though only robots, each had their own distinct personality. The references to nearly every space themed film was very Family Guy, but pulled off well. Little music samples and the main antagonist was a robot that looked like Hal from 2001: Space Odyssey. It was the little things like that which made Wall-E great. The first half hour was a bit of a throw back to classic cartoons in which Wall-E is alone on Earth and just being curious and clumsy, this was hands down the most enjoyable part of the film. Watching Wall-E and Eve together made me feel warm and squishy, seeing the Pixar interpretation of where mankind might go if we become too wasteful, uncaring, and lazy, (though it was almost unbearably preachy,) made me think a little, and the finding out each robot's directive is hilarious. Wall-E is my new second favorite Pixar film, (because nothing will ever take the place of Toy Story.)

Lauren Sepanski is a writer and film critic in Los Angeles.