WALL-E

If history holds, one of the year’s top-reviewed films will stand zero chance of a Best Picture nod. But why should WALL?E be different from any other Pixar masterpiece? Actually, this one stands out even by sky-high studio standards, being your basic child-friendly, consumerism-spoofing, silent-movie-aping sci-fi dystopia. In his commentary on the three-disc edition, director Andrew Stanton recalls realizing that binocular eyes would give his robot ”a Buster Keaton, stone-face, sad-eyes quality.” Hours of extras explore the quirks of the supporting ‘bots. Bonus ”Buy N Large” ads enrich the satire. Most fascinating are clips from an early draft that Stanton says ”was a little darker,” when future humans weren’t just slightly devolved, but limbless, gelatinous blobs. WALL?E lightened up but remains as profoundly cautionary as putative kid stuff gets. A