"WALL-E," the latest blockbuster from Disney's Pixar Studios, is a daring and spectacularly animated film.

Telling the heartbreaking -- and heartwarming -- tale of a lonely robot on a vacant, trash-encrusted world, "WALL-E" is at times breathtaking. It's an exceptional film ... but not quite a great one.

Some, however, are already calling it the greatest animated film of all time, and Internet Movie Database voters have it currently rated as the sixth-best movie, of any kind, of all time. One spot ahead of "Schindler's List."

That's just silly. "WALL-E" may not be the sixth-best of Pixar's nine films -- it's clearly behind "Toy Story," "Toy Story 2," "Monsters, Inc." and "The Incredibles." And to be honest, I'd rather watch "Finding Nemo" or "A Bug's Life" again before "WALL-E."

The Pixar standards are of course impossibly high, and the studio's only artistic failure -- "Cars" -- was still a monster hit with generally favorable reviews. "WALL-E" is very good, but I liken it to last year's "Ratatouille" -- technically excellent, but not as entertaining as it could be.

"WALL-E" is set several hundred years in the future. The Earth is a stark, barren world -- barren of anything, that is, but trash. Seemingly, its only inhabitant is WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class), a tiny trash compactor on treads. While the rest of his class lies broken and out of service, our hero scavenges parts and tirelessly continues to do his assigned cleanup work.

Every day he gathers trash, crushes it into cubes and stacks the cubes into intricate skyscrapers. Accompanied only by an indestructible cockroach, he also displays a nostalgic side, rescuing the most interesting pieces of junk and hauling them back to his makeshift home. His most valued possession seems to be a small loop from "Hello, Dolly" that warms his heart circuits.

One day, the dull sameness is interrupted by a giant spaceship that leaves behind a sleek new robot probe -- EVE -- to examine the landscape. Despite the fact that she tries to destroy him on first sight, WALL-E is enamored, and we have the beginnings of one of the strangest movie romances in history.

The first half of the movie is virtually dialogue free, other than a few beeps that sound like "Wally" and "Eve." It's a considerable gamble when a large portion of your audience is made up of children, but the concept works, for the most part -- I didn't notice many laughs from my children (the Looney Tunes-ish short "Presto" drew more in the few minutes preceding the feature), but they certainly didn't fall asleep.

The second half of the film, during which WALL-E travels into space and discovers what happened to the human race, is a bit more traditional, with chases, battles, dialogue and cute, quirky robots (pre-packaged for a fast-food kid's meal near you!) thrown in.

"WALL-E" is a very good movie, perhaps even more so for adults than children. It's ingenious at times and unique in the animated world.

Just don't expect it to be perfect.

Rental Recommendation: I don't recommend it for young kids, but "Schindler's List" is a true example of a great film. Maybe it can hang on to a top-10 spot on the IMDB lists for another Pixar movie or two. Grade: A+

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