Riot’s Reviews: Pixar’s Elemental
There’s a popular meme that came to mind before I left the house to watch Pixar’s latest film, Elemental. Its premise is simple, going through the various Disney/Pixar titles, it asks the question: what if ____ had feelings? The implication is silly but valid at the same time and culminates in some increasingly funny queries. What if toys had feelings? What if fish had feelings? What if Scotland had feelings? What if feelings had feelings? Sure, it boils some truly fantastic films down to a cheesy joke. But as time has gone on and the quality of the storytelling has dipped, it’s starting to become more apt to these films that don’t have enough substance to them. Now, in 2023 we are asking a new question: what if elements had feelings?
Elemental opens up on a montage, as we follow a pair of immigrant, anthropomorphic fire people who are trying to build a new life for themselves in Element City. Initially unable to overcome the blatant discrimination they are receiving from the other elements (air, earth, water), the pair are finally able to (literally) set up shop on the outskirts of town, restoring a dilapidated building into a fire-themed store and home for their growing family. As the years pass, their anger-prone daughter Ember (Leah Lewis) is working hard to learn how to take over the family business, but is struggling to connect with the patrons of her father’s shop. Everything comes to a head when her explosive outbursts lead to a broken water pipe in the basement, which sucks in an overly-sensitive, city water inspector Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie) who promptly writes up multiple citations for the shop. Ember must juggle her parent’s expectations, her complicated connection to the water inspector she just met, and the cataclysmic infrastructure problem that threatens her family’s entire way of life.
Disney/Pixar movies have been on a slow and steady decline for years now. Staying in line with a previous observation I made, a massive entertainment studio that was built around making movies and television for children has seemingly forgotten how to do just that. Elemental vacillated wildly between a series of very adult themes that many children may have difficulty relating to. Serious question here, do most children understand generational trauma? Do the majority of children understand the complexities of immigration and the integrations of societies? In CA, many people may be able to relate to this in some form or another, but Disney isn’t making films just for border states is it?. Are children usually focused on career development or work-life balance and satisfaction? If they aren’t, I find few reasons (outside of the overall colors/art and maybe living up to parental expectations) that the average child would enjoy and/or relate to when watching Elemental on the first pass, much less repeated showings.
What I continue to find tragic about these movies is the sheer amount of virtually wasted art and special effects. Visually, Elemental is unsurprisingly stunning, particularly everything involved with the abundantly colorful Element City. Late in the movie, there is also a jaw-dropping underwater sequence that is so incredible, it almost gets you past the incredulity of how many laws of physics are violated in the process (this happens almost non-stop through the entirety of the film). The ability to suspend belief obviously differs from person to person and considering it is supposed to be a children’s movie, we should be able to forgive the unbelievability of these scenes. The problem is, Elemental’s rules are so poorly defined (especially when it comes to what “powers” the elements actually have) it unfortunately takes you out of the moment.
The film has a massive string of emotional moments that never really have the impact they’re meant to and honestly only one scene (where Ember puts herself aside and pays respect to her father) really carries any meaningful impact. The story refuses to pick a lane and introduces too many storytelling elements that many children may have difficulty comprehending. Even though the film benefits from some pretty inspired voice acting, the characters and their personal arcs are so annoying that it taints great performances from actors that aren’t as well-known. Wade in particular, as an overly emotional crybaby is only endearing up to a certain point, the rest is nonsense. The social commentary is also overused, unoriginal, and boring at this point. Simply put, the writing frequently makes little to no sense and violates as many narrative rules as it does the laws of physics. Coupled with things like shoehorning blatant, and inappropriate sexual innuendos in their movies, I really don’t know what Pixar’s purpose is anymore. Lately, our society seems to be struggling with forcing kids to grow up too fast. If Pixar wants to alter their market to young adults and above, they need to make it clear.
Riot’s Rating: 5/10: Elemental gets credit for its fantastic art and design. But I’d advise everyone to wait for streaming. Disney’s bread and butter is making films that stand the test of time. It’s hard to imagine a story like this one doing anything else but collecting dust on a shelf, or being consistently passed over on the Disney+ menu.
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