Let’s talk about Pixar’s latest addition — ‘Elemental’

By: Kyla Hollenback

In Pixar’s latest animated feature, Elemental, main character Ember struggles with deciding whether she is going to continue family traditions after her father retires, or take a different path, while also trying to save the family business. A city inspector made of water unexpectedly bursts through the pipes of her family’s restaurant and threatens to end the fire family’s livelihood, but he quickly decides to help Ember save the day and her family’s business.

Photo: D23

 Pixar’s glory days are, unfortunately, long behind them. This is readily apparent while watching Elemental’s use of the worn out “family conflict plot template” like we saw in Encanto and Inside Out. Viewers can expect no shortage of on the nose metaphors which were constant throughout the movie, but were nowhere to be seen in trailers leading some, myself included, to being surprised with something totally different than what they were expecting to see on the big screen. Elemental itself is not a bad concept for a film, but one that is better suited for a short film rather than feature length for the sake of avoiding a repetitive, un-rewatchable film. With a budget of $200 million and a seven-year production time, I had higher hopes for this movie as far as the story and the underlying message of the film, and I was disappointed that I found myself watching Pixar beat a dead horse for an hour.

However, this was one of the most visually stunning Pixar films I have ever seen. The animation, as well as the score, the humor, and constant element puns, are what saved me from walking out on this film. I guess what I’m saying is that everything but the redundant plot in this film is great. I loved watching the characters interact with each other and seeing the way Pixar put the different parts of Elemental City together. I found myself smiling for most of the movie, incredulous at the cuteness and cleverness of it all, which was something I haven’t seen from Pixar since Inside Out. The thoughtfulness that went into this film is obvious and I was able to almost completely overlook the plot for the sake of the beautiful animation and score, and I definitely think this movie is worth a watch if you can do the same.

Rating: 3/5