ANIMATION geniuses Pixar hit the US box office jackpot once again on Sunday (June 29, 2008) as its latest adventure Wall-E grabbed top spot with an estimated $62.5 million in its first three days.

The robot love story directed by Finding Nemo‘s Andrew Stanton opened to some of the best reviews of the year so far and tied with 2001’s Monsters, Inc. as Pixar’s third-best opener.

The company record of $70.5 million was set by 2004’s The Incredibles – although WALL-E‘s profits surpasses the $50 million to $60 million predicted going into the weekend by pundits.

Wall-E is an ambitious space adventure that mixes an unusual, near-wordless love story with thought-provoking messages about the future of Earth and mankind.

Wall-E, or Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class, is the sole survivor of a batch of robots tasked with cleaning up piles of trash discarded by humans who abandoned the planet centuries before. Sadly, he has become lonely.

But the arrival of a sleek girl robot named Eve, sent to Earth by the orbiting humans to look for plant life, sends Wall-E on an adventure that changes his own and humanity’s destinies.

Critics in America were almost unanimous in their praise for Pixar’s latest, which now looks set to sweep all before it in the awards stakes and possibly emulate the Oscar-winning success of last year’s Ratatouille.

Of the glowing reviews, the Los Angeles Daily News wrote: “The film’s visions of a ravaged, abandoned future Earth and a mechanized, corporately controlled space ark/pleasure cruiser are stunning, hilarious and hit their pro-green, anti-consumerist points remarkably hard.”

While The San Francisco Chronicle noted: “The power of WALL-E as a character, the poetic figure of the robot drawn to human splendor, remains powerful throughout – and Pixar’s loveliest creation.”

E! Online stated: “With its stellar character work and sound design, WALL-E inspires enough awe and ‘Awww…’ to be a worthy entry in the Pixar canon.”

And The Globe And Mail wrote: “Mixing Chaplinesque delicacy with the architectural grandeur of a Stanley Kubrick film, director Andrew Stanton recycles film history and makes something fresh and accessible from it without pandering to a young audience.”

The Wall Street Journal’s film critic raved: “I must drop my inhibitions about dropping the M word – especially since I’ve already used magnificent – and call WALL-E the masterpiece that it is.”

And The Los Angeles Times wrote: “Daring and traditional, groundbreaking and familiar, apocalyptic and sentimental, Wall-E gains strength from embracing contradictions that would destroy other films.” Its counterpart, The New York Times was similarly impressed, stating: “It is, undoubtedly, an earnest (though far from simplistic) ecological parable, but it is also a disarmingly sweet and simple love story, Chaplinesque in its emotional purity.”

Entertainment Weekly wrote that “it whisks you to another world, then makes it every inch our own” and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times declared: “Pixar’s WALL•E succeeds at being three things at once: an enthralling animated film, a visual wonderment and a decent science-fiction story.”

But the final words go to the Hollywood Reporter, which wrote: “This is getting to sound like a broken record: Pixar Animation Studios has just topped itself. Again.”

And Variety, which concluded: “Pixar’s ninth consecutive wonder of the animated world is a simple yet deeply imagined piece of speculative fiction… it has plenty to say, but does so in a light, insouciant manner that allows you to take the message or leave it on the table.”

Elsewhere in the American box office, Angelina Jolie scored a personal best with the violent Wanted, which opened at No. 2 with a better-than-expected $51.1 million.

Wanted, which marks the Hollywood debut of Kazakhstan-born director Timur Bekmambetov, also stars Scottish actor James McAvoy (of The Last King of Scotland and Atonement) as an office drone recruited to an elite order of assassins by Jolie and Morgan Freeman. Read our verdict

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