The technical wizards at Pixar (Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles) dispel the myth that size matters in their latest computer-animated fable. As long as you've got a big heart, anything is possible, and in WALL-E, that just happens to be the most magical, out-of-this-world love story, distinguished by amazingly detailed visuals.

Director Andrew Stanton has created a masterpiece that tugs the heartstrings and leaves us giddy with joy. As soon as this beguiling film ends, you'll be clamouring to watch it again. Pixar releases begin with an enchanting short and WALL-E is no different, whetting our appetites with the hysterical battle of wits between turn-of-the-century magician Presto DiGiotagione and his cute stage bunny, Alec Azam. Presto receives a deserved standing ovation from his audience, signalling the start of the main feature, set on a futuristic planet Earth ravaged by pollution.

The human race has evacuated this graveyard of detritus and scrap metal aboard giant cruiser spaceships, leaving behind an army of solar-powered droids to clean up the mess. The last of these mechanised creations, WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class), dutifully crushes all of the refuse into neat blocks, collecting any interesting artefacts of 20th-century life (Rubik's Cube, fire extinguisher, bubble wrap) to add to his personal collection. A chirpy cockroach is WALL-E's only companion and these unlikely friends often sit down at night to view a worn out video cassette of Hello, Dolly!, which fires the little robot's hopelessly romantic hard drive.

Out of the blue, a mysterious mother ship touches down on the planet surface and spits out a sleek search-bot called EVE (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), who has been programmed to seek out flora on the third rock from the sun. What she discovers, however, is an out-dated Load Lifter with a lust for life and a thirst for adventure.

From the opening shots of satellite-encircled Earth and its dead continents of precariously stacked rubbish, WALL-E is a feast for the senses, conjuring unforgettable images like the diminutive hero gliding through the rings of Saturn or the robots' deep space waltz. Every frame is crafted with love and with such jaw-dropping attention to detail.

The hero is utterly adorable and the romance with EVE gathers pace gently before a masterful denouement that will reduce grown men to tears. Sound designer Ben Burtt allows WALL-E to communicate through a language of beeps and burps. Not since Short Circuit's Number 5 has a robot seemed so human.

Kids will love the army of malfunctioning droids introduced in the second half of the film including the compulsive-obsessive M-O (Microbe Obliterator), who is run ragged trying to clean up foreign contaminants that fall off WALL-E's rusty caterpillar tracks. Stanton's futuristic film shoots for the moon and exceeds the hype. You're unlikely to see a better picture this year.

Two Eddie Murphys are no better than one. In the family comedy Meet Dave, he plays the noble leader of race of one-and-three-quarter-inch high aliens on a mercy mission to save their dying planet. The funnyman also plays the extra-terrestrials' spaceship, called 'Dave', which has been designed to look like a human being so the otherworldly visitors can pass among us unnoticed.

Skilled crew members take control of each part of the ship's anatomy, resulting in disastrous first efforts to walk in a straight line or put on a sweater in a seemly fashion. Neither role plays to Murphy's diminished strengths, and Rob Greenberg and Bill Corbett's script almost drowns in its own sickly sentiment as the aliens realise mankind isn't so bad after all. They would undoubtedly revise their opinion if they had to sit through Brian Robbins' film.

A meteorite falls to Earth and smashes into a goldfish bowl belonging to Josh (Austyn Lind Myers), who lives in New York City with his artist mother Gina (Elizabeth Banks).

Three months later, a tiny alien Captain (Murphy) and his crew crash-land in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty in their human-sized craft, which they name Dave Ming Chang: supposedly the most common name on our planet. They seek the meteorite, the key to saving their doomed home world. By a stroke of luck, careless driver Gina knocks down Dave and invites him into her apartment, hoping to avoid a law suit.

The Captain and cultural officer No 3 (Gabrielle Union) are fascinated by Gina's concern for Dave. They allow themselves to be distracted from the mission, enraging second in command No 2 (Ed Helms), whose sole concern is his planet's survival, even if that means destroying Earth and every living creature on it. Meanwhile, a sci-fi obsessed cop (Scott Caan) stumbles upon the crash site on Ellis Island and begins to form a fantastical theory about alien visitors that isn't far removed from the truth. Meet Dave begins with some fleetingly amusing sequences of the aliens attempting to mimic human behaviour or mistakenly taking characters at their word, like when Josh complains that Gina is overly protective and smothers him.

"She cuts off your air supply?" asks Dave, aghast at the barbarity of human parenting techniques.

However, it becomes increasingly implausible that the erratic behaviour of the alien spaceship wouldn't arouse suspicion.

Dave's participation in a hot dog eating contest leads to the inevitable toilet humour - "Excuse me, my colon is impacted" - while the scriptwriters shamelessly embrace gay stereotypes to transform security officer No 4 (Kilbane) into a swishing, Cher acolyte after he catches a brief glimpse of a Broadway musical.

Murphy is charmless in both parts while a tepid romantic subplot between the Captain and No 3 consigns the luminous Union to a thankless supporting role.