Wall-E

Another winner from the formidable Pixar animation studio, this vivid, poignant science-fiction film cloaks a bracing environmental allegory in a sweet love story and some inspired slapstick comedy. Set in a toxic waste dump that looks an awful lot like the USA, the film finds solar-powered robot Wall-E developing human feelings. He's curious about stuff, sometimes frightened, and desperately lonely - until he receives his first visitor in 700 years, a shiny, bright explorer robot by the name of Eve. Wall-E's courtship is all the more touching for being essentially wordless. He shows her his ­collection of rubbish, including bubble wrap, a lighter, and a tape of Hello Dolly. She gives him the cold shoulder. Act II transports us to the Mother Ship, a kind of cruise liner in space, where our descendants never leave their hover chairs and pliantly consume whatever messages the master computer feeds them. Here Wall-E's most precious gift to Eve, a weed, threatens to turn their world upside down. This is delicious filmmaking, reminiscent at times of Charlie Chaplin and Stanley Kubrick (and running as hot and cold as that combination suggests). Take someone you care about - and hold hands in the dark.