Finally, after half a year of waiting, I finally got to witness the sci-fi motion-picture event of the year yesterday with my brother and best pal. It took place at Greater Union, George Street, the most popular cinema in town with an old-fashioned billboard announcing what’s showing. The interior has been under renovation since last year around this time to early May this year, from an old-style red carpet with yellow lighting from a chandelier to a modern, marble-tiled, fluorescent-lighted hall with those digital posters that change every few seconds, and a row of flat-screen TVs displaying showtimes.
They also opened two brand-new theatres which they dubbed GMax, as these were the biggest, widest and brightest and best-picture quality screens they had on offer (Singapore also has a similar concept. Golden Village has GVGrand, and Cathay has The Grand Cathay). I had checked showtimes earlier and was pleased they were showing Wall-E on one of them. When I watched Rat last year, they showed it on one of the smallest screens (the kind reserved for small-timers or indies), along with Kung Fu Panda earlier this year, so I’m glad they deemed it a big enough blockbuster to unleash on their biggest screens. Only the most popular, or in my own words, ‘Film of the Week’, get this premium treatment, so that was cool.
Anyway, I bought our tickets 3 hours beforehand as I predicted there would be a rush closer to the showtime, not to mention it’s opening weekend. I was disappointed there were no Wall-E standees to be seen in the lobby, there was a movie snack tie-in where they had Wall-E themed popcorn buckets and drink cups, but I didn’t buy that as I wasn’t hungry. There wasn’t a really big crowd or anything when we headed for the doors, probably because our show was at 4:30 pm and it’s not really the evening crowd yet. We seated down and I glanced behind to gauge the crowd. Cinema was about 90% full, which was a good turnout. Nice mix of adults and kids. They played a couple of trailers: Beverly Hills Chihuahua (which I groaned at loudly), High School Musical 3 (which my bro looked forward to), Madagascar 2, and The Tale of Desparaux.
In general, my audience was very well-behaved, sometimes almost too quiet, I couldn’t tell whether there were any kids, and I would have liked a bigger reaction for some scenes. There were a few chuckles for the Presto short when [spoil]the magician pulled the bunny away from the carrot by its tail and when the bunny mimed eating the carrot[/spoil].
The film had great quality, no splotches on the print, and it almost looked like digital quality. Sound was great, whole theatre must have reverberated every time [spoil]shuttle lifts off[/spoil]. In terms of audience reaction, there were some gasps when [spoil]Wall-E accidentally ran over Hal the cockroach at the beginning, Eve shot at Wall-E behind the rock and later at Hal, and when Wall-E got crushed in the climax[/spoil]. Some laughs were heard when [spoil]Wall-E tried to classify the spork, Wall-E tried to inch closer to Eve while staring at the burning tankers, the toy bass starts to sing when Eve approaches it, Eve tried to dance by jumping up and down in the trailer, M-O complained during his first meeting with Wall-E, Wall-E flew screaming past Eve after the pod explosion and the captain standing up to face against Auto in the climax to the theme of 2001: A Space Oddysey.[/spoil]
At the beginning, my friend turned to me and whispered the BnL logo looked like IGA, a local chain of supermarkets.
Like rachel’s crowd, the audience fell deathly silent when [spoil]Eve tries desperately to talk to an expressionless Wall-E at the end[/spoil].
When the film ended, I just sat in my seat in awe. My bro and friend were surprisingly silent too, as we watched the credits with the 80s aesthetics. We didn’t even make a move to get up until after [spoil]the BNL logo (at which point I laughed because of its cheesy jingle bookending such an awesome film).[/spoil] We talked a bit about reactions to the emotional ending, Hal’s seemingly indestructibility, and shared a laugh over the film’s depiction of the humans in the future as fat blobs (though I feel that concept isn’t too far-fetched, based on the increasing rate of our reliance on technology).
Overall, my crowd was well-behaved, though I would have liked to see more interaction. Maybe I couldn’t remember their reactions if there were any because I was so absorbed by the mesmerising visuals on-screen. No applause after Presto or the film, and I almost wanted to clap but didn’t want to embarass my friend or bro, so I just sat there dumbstruck. It was such an experience, I have so much to think and write about. I’m really hoping an opportunity to see the movie again presents itself, and I’ll probably need some time before I write a full-length review (maybe even a talkie version on YT, I have never done online reviews before but this has inspired me). I’ll tell you one thing, Wall-E is so darn good that it’s currently fighting Cars in my head for the number one-spot in my list of favourite Pixar movies of all time. And that’s saying a lot considering I’m more of a car nut than a robot geek. It’s just…so…indescribable. 
) so Village and Hoyts tend to be a more popular alternative here.
