PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Jul 16, 2023 21:50:54 GMT -5
Disney's mistreatment of Pixar over the past few years really has been unfortunate, because some real gems like Soul, Luca and Turning Red didn't get the respect they deserved, and that's come back to bite Elemental. And that's unfortunate as well, because this is a really good movie! So, to get something out of the way first: if you really pay attention to all of the various rules and whatnot set forth in this world, then the question of, "Well, how would this and that work, and why is that even a thing?" will spring up. But it's a testament to the sheer strength of this movie and the overall storytelling that those questions ultimately don't matter as much as they would in a weaker film. Because the heart and soul of this movie -- the romance and the characters -- very handily pull you in, to the point where any inconsistencies in the world ultimately don't matter much. This is Pixar's first full-on romantic comedy, and it's a delight because these characters feel so fully-defined, so it's easy to get invested in them. But it's not just them, it's also the environment around them. Whatever the world here may lack in consistency of everyday rules, it makes up for by way of creating a sense of community that feels very lived-in, which very much feels like traditional Pixar at work. As a result, it's a joy just to hang out in this world with these characters and root for the main ones to overcome their obstacles. It doesn't just come down to the movie simply feeling pleasant, either. No, the movie -- in typical Pixar fashion -- manages to tap into some genuine emotion here, so that you really understand each of the characters' lots in life and the deeper reasons for what they're struggling with. You can tell that this is coming from a place of experience for director Peter Sohn. Obviously, there's a lot here about the immigrant experience in America, but there's also stuff about the sacrifices that parents have to make to give their children the best life possible, plus children feeling like they need to live up to their parents, and that really does enrich the narrative. Throw all that in on top of the central romance (which also has more layers than you might expect), and this movie just sings. By the end, too, there's that emotional catharsis we've come to expect from a Pixar film. Elemental may not be QUITE in the upper echelons of Pixar movies (though I'm curious to see what rewatches of this movie may bring), but it's definitely a step up from Lightyear and a return to that Pixar Magic we've come to know and love so well.
***1/2 /****
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Jul 23, 2023 17:47:52 GMT -5
Elemental(7/2/2023)
You know, I feel like I’ve written something like four reviews of Pixar movies in a row by commenting on how strange it is that that I’ve become something of a staunch defender of them in this phase of their existence and how I believe they’re held to an unfair double standard that the rest of the animation industry isn’t but… well, it keeps being true. To be fair I would say that I feel less inclined to defend their latest film, Elemental, than I did other efforts like Luca or even Onward but like Lightyear it’s a lot better than its reputation and box office would lead you to believe. Granted I do sort of get why people have been a bit weary about this one as it’s basic concept feels kind of like a parody of Pixar high concept. You can almost picture a trailer announcing something like “from the studio that brought you sentient toys, sentient cars, and sentient emotions: sentient elements.” The movie is set in a fantasy city populated by clans of living avatars of the four classical elements (Fire, Water, Earth, and Air) and chronicles a “forbidden” romance between a woman from a fire family and a dude from a water family. The fire family in question is framed as an immigrant family and more specifically I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be an Asian family given a couple of tells in the screenplay and the Korean background of the film’s director Peter Sohn, meanwhile the water guy is supposed to be a stand-in for you basic upper middle class white dude.
That whole metaphor is a bit on the nose. This is something like the third or fourth post pandemic Disney/Pixar animated movie about immigrants with overbearing/over-protective parents we’ve gotten and that’s a theme that’s perhaps getting a touch stale in culture more generally at this point and I don’t think this movie does much about it. Zootopia probably pulled off the whole animated world racism metaphor better simply by being a bit more vague with its parallels. Additionally, the film’s central romance is a bit flawed: I get why the water guy is into the fire girl, but I’m not quite sure why she likes him given that Mamoudou Athie voices him as this rather unsexy goofball. But on the positive side, as with most Pixar movies you definitely get your animation’s worth out of the film. You see every cent of that $200 million budget on the screen and the animators manage to do all sorts of cool tricks in rendering the film’s “living element” characters. The film’s world building isn’t perfect by any means (for one thing it’s pretty inconsistent about what the fire girl’s heat will and won’t set afire) but I still think it’s a overall a pretty big strength of the film as it comes up with some pretty clever ways of envisioning how a world like this would operate. So there are a lot of elements here that aren’t quite good enough to “make” the movie but none of them are completely flawed either and between all of them I do think this adds up to a pretty enjoyable movie for what this is. In fact I’d go so far as to say it adds up to more than the sum of its parts given that solid non-Spider-Man animated films are in pretty short supply these days. So yeah, yet another Pixar movie that’s been given a raw deal. Shame.
*** out of Five
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