WALL-E was no exception; and even though I had to get up early to go to work the next day, nothing was going to keep me from the midnight showing on the opening night. And, to be honest, I was a little worried; I had yet to see a Pixar film I haven’t loved, so would this be my first disappointment?

I am thrilled to say that the Pixar magic is as strong as ever. WALL-E met all my standards and then some. Technically and artistically, it was at least as good as its predecessors, and the story, script, and presentation were all sublime.

It is the tale of a whimsical robot (a WALL-E model), the last resident on an over-polluted Earth long abandoned by the human race. WALL-E was left to clean up the garbage left behind so that it might one day support life again. Its endless toil is interrupted, however, when a ship appears from the sky to dispatch another robot (an EVE model), and WALL-E is catapulted into the post-modern world of the luxury interstellar cruiser Axiom, home to Earth’s humans these past seven centuries.

This story itself was compelling, original, and well-told—traits many movies cannot claim. It combined the wonder of exploration, the thrill of espionage and betrayal, and the simple joys of (robotic) love. The imagery was pleasant and the characters were adorable, both things to be expected from the makers of Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo.

WALL-E truly shined, however, not in what it had, but rather what it lacked. The first half of the movie passed with almost no traditional dialogue. Most of the robots featured (including WALL-E and EVE) were entirely mute or could haltingly pronounce half a dozen words. The film instead was grounded in situational storytelling. The impeccably anthropomorphized WALL-E could express a thousand feelings simply by wiggling its binocular-like eyes, and MO—one of Axiom’s obsessive cleaning robots—was clearly ecstatic when it realized it was capable of leaving its pre-ordained path to scrub WALL-E’s dirt-strewn wake.

Another distinctive quality was the absence of a true villain. While there were clearly a few antagonists, there was no unifying force of evil for the audience to hate. Even the humans—lazy, overweight stereotypes of a pampered civilization—were lovable in their own way. They were never portrayed as enemies, but were simply ignorant, and it was very easy to forgive them that fault.

It should go without saying that the animation was superb. The rendering was smooth, the details impeccable, and the dynamics realistic. As always, in that kingdom, Pixar is king; when the lights dimmed and the lackluster trailers gave way to the pre-feature animated short (Presto, worthy of a glowing review of its own), the difference in animation quality and technique was like night and day.