Product Info

Studio

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (Pixar)

Director

Peter Sohn

Genre

Action, Adventure, Animation, Family, Fantasy

Rated

PG

Theatrical Release Date (NA)

Jun 16, 2023

Film Length

1hr 49min

Purchase From

Elemental, the 27th Pixar movie and the second Pixar movie to release in theaters since the worldwide pandemic shutdown, is visually gorgeous. The story doesn’t push the envelope, but it’s still a heartwarming movie that comes with teary moments. It snugly fits under two hours to keep fans entertained.

Playing with Fire

With the last Pixar film, Lightyear and Disney’s Strange World, surrounded by controversy and box office slumps, animation film watchers are apprehensive about how Elemental will do in theaters. An additional layer to it is that the film is directed by Peter Sohn. His last film, 2015’s The Good Dinosaur, left a sour taste in many Pixar fan’s mouths. Rest assured, Elemental makes a solid bounce back for fans to continue watching Pixar’s work.

Starting a New Flame

At the start of the film, two fire elements arrive in a city as immigrants to start a new life with their newborn on the way. Later in the film, it’s explained why. They set up a small market in an area that’s been abandoned due to the water pipes no longer working—a convenient spot for fire to reside. Soon after, their newborn Ember arrives, voiced by Leah Lewis (Nancy Drew, The Half of It). For years, she prepares to take over her father’s business, but her father believes she isn’t ready until she can control her temper with the customers. The interaction between the family is fun and energetic. It’s interesting to see the family still holds onto traditions from their homeland and keeps some of their native language mixed with their English. The story was inspired by Peter Sohn’s history. In an interview by CTV News, Sohn explains that the movie was based on his parents’ migration from South Korea to the United States to help their kids to start a new life. Additionally, pieces of his story such as his grandmother’s dying wish trickled into Elemental’s script.

Mixing Real World Issues

There are a handful of deep issues the movie touches upon, for instance, the scenarios that are influenced by cultural beliefs and values. Parents mold their children to what they want to be, tell them how to live their lives and influence them to marry only in the same race and culture. In Elemental, Ember is handed her fate of running the shop as she feels like she has no other option in life. Mixed element relationships also show the complications of incorporating different cultural values and family systems into a new family.

Can Elements Mix?

It’s explained in Elemental that elements cannot mix together. Doing so can cause alarming issues such as pain and death. Despite the threats, Ember and water element Wade Ripple, voiced by Mamoudou Athie (Jurassic World: Dominion, Black Box) take on the impossible task of determining if two different elements can co-exist. It takes a while for their relationship to build and even at the end of the movie, the question of whether their relationship will work is not fully answered. However, it opens the doors for many other elements to intertwine their relationships.

While Ember’s focus is quite narrow, zeroed in only on her family’s business, Wade introduces her to other opportunities that she’s missing out on. Additionally, he’s an emotional guy who gives many positive reinforcements and he’s just a good guy. As the movie progresses, you’ll slowly see Ember open up and Wade supporting her along the way. For two different elements, they mesh together really well, like peanut butter and jelly.

Ripple Effect

Unlike the film’s animation, Elemental’s story doesn’t push the boundary and plays it safe with multiple rehashed stories put together. For example, the plot goes from Ember’s parents migrating to a new home to Ember trying to take over the family business, which eventually evolves into a water leak that turns into a race against time to prevent the shop from shutting down while a forbidden love interest builds. It feels a lot to take in but wraps up in under two hours.

The character building mostly involves Ember and Wade, but you’ll see some growth with Ember’s family as they slowly open up to new things after experiencing their daughter’s happiness. Wade’s colleagues are introduced but not much more, and the same goes for his family.

An Elemental Wonderland

Pixar has always pushed boundaries in most of its films, and most of them work. However, not everything works in Elemental. Graphically, it’s a no-brainer. This is one of Pixar’s best-looking animations, and pulling off the effects for each element, mostly water and fire, is impressive. The constant movements of the flames and ripple effects on each humanoid element makes it feel like each one is alive. The experience feels like how Monsters, Inc. showcased the animation work of Sulley’s fur; it was astounding how good it looked. In Elemental, the wind and earth element humanoids don’t have any special effects compared to fire and water, but you know they exist. The wind elements look more like cloud people, closely resembling the 2009 Pixar short “Partly Cloudy”. Earth elements are various types of plant-like humanoids.

Element City is the utopia where all four elements (fire, water, earth, wind) reside. At first thought, the city would closely resemble Disney’s Zootopia with its setup between species, but it feels different than that. Three of the four elements seem to reside in the same city, whereas fire is segregated in one area where there’s no water (since water can put out flames) due to the malfunction of the water pipes that were never fixed. The city itself looks impressive with its mix of glass and stone infrastructure. Water is used to help move the monorail that travels through Element City, including the flame element’s area.

Adding More Shine

The film’s soundtrack is very whimsical, chilled along with ambient music. It blends with the film’s atmosphere, and  you forget it exists with how many scenarios are occurring. Watching the film in 3D works really well at specific scenes. For example, Ember and Wade floating across Element City in a transportation that resembles a hot air balloon adds depth as they ride between the skyscrapers. Otherwise, your eyes are used to the depth on ground-level.

The Final Mix

Elemental is a gorgeous visual film with splendid effects. While the story is standard, it’s a heartwarming take on a relationship between two elements that viewers will want to watch. A solid bounce back for Pixar.

An early 3D movie screening provided for this review.