Imagine if everyone left the Earth and someone forgot to turn off the last robot. That's the premise of the engaging and visually stunning computer-animated flick, Wall-E, the latest from Pixar Animation, which brought us "Ratatouille," "The Incredibles" and "Toy Story."The year is 2700 and the titular Wall-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth Class) is a robot built to clean up the Earth, which has become a stark wasteland, and has spent his time since humans fled making little cubes of trash, developing a quirky little personality. He spends his days following his programming along with his roach friend, Hal (get it, Hal Roach) and collecting little treasures — lighters, sporks, rubber toys — until a new robot arrives to scout planet Earth for signs of life, EVE (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator).

With minimal dialogue beyond beeps and blips and sci-fi sounds, the two fall in love. Well, Wall-E falls in love.

Wall-E surrenders one of his sacred possessions, a tiny plant, which triggers EVE's programming and sends her back to her space station.

Wall-E has to make the decision whether to stay in his world or chase the girl of his dreams. WALL-E — a romantic robot who endlessly rewatches two numbers from "Hello Dolly:" the big, bright dance number "Put on Your Sunday Clothes," and the romantic love song, "It Only Takes a Moment" every night after work — takes his chances to follow EVE aboard Axiom, a giant luxury liner in space carrying all the humans, who have been lounging around for centuries, waiting to return to Earth.

The station is populated both by a legion of robots and the descendants of those who populated Earth that they serve. Thanks in part to the hand-and-foot service of the robots, humans have become massive, flabby beings with tiny, almost-vestigial limbs. They move about the space station in moving recliners equipped with screens, in their own virtual worlds, avoiding human contact.

The computerized powers at the station regard the plant as proof that Earth is ready to be re-colonized. Unfortunately there's someone who doesn't want to go back and the conflict ensues.

At the heart of it, this is a love story. Set in space. With robots.

This movie is more than the sum of its parts. The love story is sweet to the point of saccharine, but still manages to pull at the heart-strings. There is never a moment in which the audience isn't rooting for Wall-E and his simple hope of a hand held. Our sweetly bedraggled hero's slapstick wooing efforts keep the laughs coming even as the heart is breaking.

But, even more important for an animated movie, the visual elements of this movie are majestic and overwhelming. The camera moves like a real one — with zooms, pans, foreground shots, background details — everything you'd find in live action — and gorgeous. The movie takes us from a devastated Earth to the brilliant stars. The amount of detail takes the breath away and is worth the price of admission just to take in a fraction of the splendor. It's worth a second or a third admission, too.

As Wall-E's cherished song goes, it only takes a moment to fall in love and any moment from this movie will do the trick.