This first pilgrimage to the cinema has been something I've been looking forward to since she was born. I love movies dearly, and I think the first movie a child sees in a real honest-to-peaches movie theater is important.

I've always been a bit embarrassed that the first movie my parents took me to see was the wretched The Million Dollar Duck with Dean Jones and Sandy Duncan, a movie that encapsulated everything that went wrong with Disney during its nadir in the early 70's: it was cheap, slipshod, derivative, exhausted; the cinematic equivalent of the '81 Ford Thunderbird.

So Wall-E it was for my daughter. She seemed ready to sit through a real movie and all the reviews I read of Wall-E were raves.

Well, I can think of no higher praise for Pixar's latest effort than this:

The Million Dollar Duck it ain't.

Don't get me wrong. I was surprised, at times alarmed, at how somber a movie Wall-E was; and at several points I was concerned that the movie would simply leave my daughter behind. But she focused on the robots and their interaction; and when we were walking out of the movie theater she turned to me and said, "Daddy, I want to see another movie now."

Ah, that's my girl.

But while watching the movie it occured to me that the ecological theme and the anti-consumerist message would drive the right wing crazy, and I was right. Here's a typical bit of hyperventilating from The Corner:

From the first moment of the film, my kids were bombarded with leftist propaganda about the evils of mankind. It's a shame, too, because the robot had promise. The story was just awful, however. Nice to see that Disney and Pixar can make mega-millions off of telling us just how greedy, lazy, and destructive we all are. There's no hope for mankind. Hand over your wallet.

"Wall-E" says that humans have within themselves the freedom to rebel, to overthrow that which dominates and alienates us from our true selves, and our own nature. But you have to question the prime directive; that is, you have to become conscious of how they way you're living is destroying your body and killing your soul, and choose to resist. "Wall-E" contends that real life is hard, real life is struggle, and that we live most meaningfully not by avoiding pain and struggle, but by engaging it creatively, and sharing that struggle in community. It argues that rampant consumerism, technopoly and the exaltation of comfort is causing us to weaken our souls and bodies, and sell out our birthright of political freedom. Nobody is doing this to us; we're doing it to ourselves. It is the endgame of modernity, which began in part with the idea that Nature is the enemy to be subdued -- that man stands outside of Nature, and has nothing to learn about himself from Nature's deep logic.

Sounds like pretty heavy stuff, when Rod puts it that way. And considering all the plates that the movie has spinning simultaneously, it's a wonder that it works for four-year-olds as well as for adults. But it does work, and very well. If you haven't seen it, you ought to go.

Even if you don't have a four-year-old to take with you.