Planet Earth is a smoky shade of decay, its cities a wonderland of trash and rubble tended to by a compact compactor who, 700 years after humans ruined and abandoned the planet, is kept company by the last surviving roach. WALL-E (a Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class, voiced by Ben Burtt) is the sad creature charged with piling up all the detritus; he is Legend, and all he wants is someone to hold hands with, like they did in 1960s musicals. Then he's joined by EVE (an Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, voiced by Elissa Knight), who arrives in what looks like Boba Fett's ship to scour the Earth per her "directive" and ultimately, accidentally, provides the little dude with some company. Cobbled from so many familiar spare parts—from Star Wars to Buster Keaton to Tron to the Marx Brothers—the film feels, here and there, formulaic: Lonely boy and sexy girl meet cute, fall in love, save the planet. But such reverence for movie history in general and sci-fi in particular is vital to WALL-E's story, because it's what ultimately gives the film its wow factor and its weight—this reinvigoration of the past on the way to the future of filmmaking. Charlie Chaplin . . . in space, both breathtakingly majestic and heartbreakingly intimate. — Robert Wilonsky