WALL-E

He struggles to get up in the morning, he trundles off to a mindless job every day, he hangs out with his best friend (and housemate) when catching a breather, and likes relaxing with a good movie when he gets home at night.

WALL-E's not that different from you and me. Except he's a trash compacting robot stuck on a barren earth overrun by junk — and his pal is a seemingly indestructible cockroach. Over 700 years since humans left the devastated planet, he's the only remaining "Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class" machine left behind to tidy up the place. But while he may be blissfully unaware of his job's futility — taking great delight in salvaging curios like iPods and Rubik's cubes from the trash — the little rust-bucket is fully aware of his own loneliness. Cockroaches aren't the best conversationalists, and WALL-E longs to experience the joy and companionship he sees every night in his battered video copy of 'Hello Dolly'.

With the sudden arrival of a search robot named EVE (think Angelina Jolie as a sleek metal capsule), his wish comes true — even as his camera eyes can't quite believe the new world he's suddenly exposed to.

Pixar's latest masterpiece will have much the same effect on you. A landmark of computer animation, it's yet another technological leap forward for the pioneering studio. Boasting images that are almost photo-real, the attention to detail is quite simply astounding — a weightless space encounter must rank as the most spellbinding bit of animation since Disney's 'Fantasia'.

And yet the real triumph is the storytelling. Previously the studio has made us feel for toys, fish, cars, and even rats, but 'WALL-E' makes you fall in love with a metal block that barely speaks. Bravely limiting the opening 30 minutes of dialogue to little more than computerised bleeps and bloops, writer-director Andrew Stanton creates a fantasy so unique and a title character so charming, you feel like a six-year-old watching 'ET' for the first time.

Certainly, as with his 'Finding Nemo', Stanton's script — which touches on consumer culture, bureaucracy, and our technology obsession but lingers on the value of relationships — occasionally wears thin. It's barely noticeable though, thanks to the fine nuances given to even the supporting characters — and the remarkable charm of the title character.

WALL-E may not know karate, but he sure as hell kicks that chubby panda's ass.