One of the summer’s presumptive blockbuster-tentpole-hits-to-be, the Pixar film is clearly making co-producer/distributor Disney nervous. And it’s not hard to see why. It’s too good. Too smart. And, most importantly, too dark.

Set in a future where the Earth has become covered in trash, swept by monstrous, rumbling dust storms and whose only bona fide wildlife is the cockroach (a literally running gag), “WALL-E” refers to our hero _ a Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth class. The cute, mechanically chirping robot has been left behind to toil endlessly in the shadow of the planet’s rubbish skyline, collecting garbage, compressing garbage, living his solitary life amid his amassed artifacts of bygone human society (a Rubik’s cube, a flashbulb, a museum’s worth of Zippo lighters).

Oh, yes — and he ends each day growing misty-eyed (or misty-goggled) rewatching an old copy of “Hello, Dolly!” It’s embarrassing _ is this what would be left of us? Meanwhile, a mass of humankind has been traveling through space for 700 years waiting for Earth to regenerate — and, thanks to the constant attention of robots, has been reduced (if that’s the word) to morbid obesity, sloth and watching interactive video screens. This is not the Enchanted Forest. It’s too plausible for that.

The anticipation surrounding “WALL-E,” directed by “Finding Nemo’s” Andrew Stanton, has been mostly about Pixar. The animation studio behind “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille,” it is a company with the best track record in film, and the only thing now providing Greater Disney with any artistic credibility. (Don’t think so? Have you watched “Hannah Montana”?) Everyone knows that the marketplace is so starved for G-rated fare that even a modest advertising outlay is enough to sell the American moviegoing family anything, especially if it’s animated. But now, while Pixar could be resting on its laurels, the studio makes its most daring film ever.

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