Having created some of the top animated movies of all time, including Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., and Ratatouille, what could Pixar do for an encore? Simple (for Pixar): Make another one.

WALL-E is an instant classic, a title it easily shares with such Disney titles as Snow White, Bambi, and Cinderella. And in an era in which most filmmakers seem hell bent on showing us the worst side of people, this sweet movie is a potent antidote that espouses the power of love.

Pixar’s CGI artists have always been good at personifying inanimate objects. Their opening logo stars Luxo Jr., the desk lamp with a personality, and the star of the studio’s very first short subject (1986). The robot stars of WALL-E seem so very real that we are outraged that anything bad might happen to them, and we cheer their union on.

WALL-E is a film for all people that operates on many levels. On a social level, it is very dark, depicting a future in which humans have trashed the Earth, left it behind, and now live in a huge spaceship that cruises the galaxy. Waited on hand and foot by various marvels of technology, our descendants have lost their ability to stand, walk, or run, and roll themselves around in giant chairs.

At the beginning of the movie, we are shown an Earth that is bleak and hopeless. The only thing that still works is WALL-E (beeped by Ben Burtt, who brought life to Star Wars’ R2D2), a rusty relic of a robot whose name is an acronym for Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth class. WALL-E still slavishly performs the task for which he was created centuries earlier, stuffing trash into his innards and compacting it into cubes, which he then stacks. There is only one representative of organic life in WALL-E’s world -- a cockroach -- but the robot knows that there must be more to existence. He has rescued from his planet of trash a VHS tape of the 1969 film Hello, Dolly!, and delights, if sadly, in watching it over and over.

One day, a huge spaceship lands on Earth, and from it emerges EVE (for Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, voiced by Elissa Knight), a sleek, smart, powerful little robot that we accept as female in the same way WALL-E is perceived as male. She almost kills him at first, when she mistakes him for an enemy, but WALL-E survives the attack to fall head over heels in love. His clumsy courtship of EVE is both side-splittingly funny and heartwarmingly adorable. EVE takes a while to warm to WALL-E, but he eventually wins her over. She is then snatched away by the spaceship, and WALL-E follows his love to outer space.

Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) directs everything with a sure and unerring hand. The script never talks down to its audience, nor does it fly above their heads. Everything in WALL-E is exactly where it should be with precisely the right sentiment. The animation is so three-dimensional that you can feel textures and revel in thousands of tiny details. Pixar has once again set a new standard of computer animation that other animators must now work hard to match.

WALL-E has everything: heart, intelligence, adventure, and craftsmanship far beyond the norm. Some promising films remain to fill out the rest of the summer season, and no doubt a few of them will be quite good. But I doubt that any will improve on this one -- it’s a perfect gem that deserves every award for which it qualifies. WALL-E is now at the top of my "Best Movies of 2008" list, and seems likely to stay there. I have no doubt that people will be enjoying it long after this review and its author are dust -- a thought that brings up another word that describes this film: timeless -- a timeless masterpiece for all ages, and a love story for the ages.

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