The eggheaded visionaries at Pixar Animation Studios have maintained an exceptional level of quality since 1995's "Toy Story," their first (and THE first) computer-animated feature, but with the flawless "WALL•E," Pixar sets that bar on the tippy-top shelf, where no one can touch it. An alternately joyful and melancholy cartoon masterwork about the last robot on Earth, "WALL•E" encompasses many things - Chaplinesque slapstick, unsettling Kubrickian dystopia, Gore-y environmental parable - but then there's this: "WALL•E" is the most deliriously romantic movie of the summer, and only someone with a fried motherboard would disagree. To be honest, though, it had me at "Hello, Dolly!"

Anyone who did time in their high-school orchestra pit should recognize "Put On Your Sunday Clothes," the song that opens "WALL•E" as a droid putters across a littered landscape. That's our hero, the solar-powered Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class, faithfully stacking trash (and acquiring a personality) in the 700 years since our wanton consumerism forced us to abandon the planet for an intergalactic cruise ship. The adorably klutzy WALL•E has a cockroach pal and a nifty collection of junk, and at the end of a hard day he hangs up his tiny tank tracks to settle in with a well-worn video of 1969's "Hello, Dolly!" Its yearning for "a world outside of Yonkers" establishes the metaphor for WALL•E's loneliness, but watching his goggle eyes widen at the image of two people holding hands is positively heartbreaking.

Despite very limited verbal abilities, WALL•E falls hard for EVE, a sleek pod sent to ascertain whether Earth is able to sustain life, and his adventures begin when the smitten ‘bot follows her back into space. It's there that we get a glimpse of our future as atrophied jellybeans, helpless to do anything but sit, eat, gossip, and buy. The least interesting aspect of "WALL•E" is the conflict that ensues between the artificial intelligence running the ship and the human nostalgia that wants to go home. Your main concern will likely be whether WALL•E realizes his dream of finally interlocking metal fingers with EVE.

Director Andrew Stanton ("Finding Nemo") laid in a couple ringers to help him construct this dizzying love story/ecological nightmare, including the Coens' cinematographer Roger Deakins, and Ben Burtt, the designer of some of cinema's most iconic sounds. Before Burtt cobbled together WALL•E's whirs and clicks, he gave us R2D2's chirps, Darth Vader's breathing, Chewie's howl, and the "zzhoooomp" of the light saber. Perpetual MVP Fred Willard pops up, live-action style, as the ship's leader, but other than that the human voice talent is unremarkable. Did I mention the first 30 minutes of "WALL•E" are essentially wordless? They're also gorgeously sublime.

So whether it's for little kids, I'm not sure; my niece and nephew decided to see "Wanted." (Oh, stop; I'm only kidding. They were way too hung over for a movie.) Though there's enough goofy, colorful action to keep children entertained, the cautionary part might go over their heads. But kids will definitely dig the pre-feature cartoon "Presto," in which a magician and his rabbit explore the classic themes of vengeance, desire, forgiveness, and taking a ladder to the crotch.

Filmmaker Gus Van Sant was probably able to write his own ticket following the success of 1997's "Good Will Hunting," but since 2003's Columbine-inspired "Elephant," for which he won the Palme d'Or, Van Sant has willfully remained in edgy indie territory. "Paranoid Park" is his latest - and one of his best - a hypnotic, fragmented mystery that watches as a Portland skater puzzles out his involvement in an appalling tragedy.

Van Sant calls upon the mesmerizing talents of shooter Christopher Doyle as well as a soundtrack heavy on the dichotomous sounds of Nino Rota and Elliot Smith to draw us into Alex's alienation. It's a credit to Van Sant's structure, as well as the subtle performance of Gabe Nevins as Alex, that we remain undecided about Alex's guilt or innocence... until Van Sant's money shot, jaw-dropping imagery that rockets the viewer out of the Doyle-orchestrated poetry that came before. 

WALL•E

(G), directed by Andrew Stanton

Now playing

Paranoid Park

(R), directed by Gus Van Sant

Screens Saturday at the Dryden