It’s becoming more and more difficult for an original idea to break through in the increasingly competitive world of animation. Once a rarity, sequels have become the driving force of animation studios, with more and more of the top brands relying on established franchises in order to keep the lights on. But at the same time, none of these franchises would exist had one original film managed to connect with audiences. So, there has to exist a balance between studios investing in their future by coming up with the next big idea for a movie, while at the same time still continuing to milk their franchises for what their worth. Sadly, the balance is becoming more heavily favored in the sequel department, and that’s partly because those are the films that generate the strongest results at the box office. But the flooding of the marketplace with established franchises has made it difficult for something original to stand out, and the number of them that do is becoming far smaller each year. This is even true with what is regarded as the best animation studio of them all; Pixar Animation. All of their highest grossing films are sequels, including Inside Out 2 (2024), Incredibles 2 (2018), Finding Dory (2016) and Toy Story 4 (2019), and there more on the horizon, including another Toy Story. But, they are a studio that still tries to put out something original into theaters, not just in order to plan for the future, but to also allow themselves a chance to be experimental as well. They have a lot more leeway than other animation studios in this regard, mainly due to the strength of their brand name which is a selling point in itself. But, circumstances in recent years have made even this selling point difficult for them. After Toy Story 4 hit theaters and generated a handsome total at the box office, Pixar had an upcoming slate that was going to be primarily originals; a bode of confidence in their ability to deliver on the strength of their brand alone. But, unfortunately the Coivd-19 pandemic ruined their plans. Onward (2020) only got two weeks into it’s run before movie theaters everywhere closed and Pixar would not have anything seen on the big screen for another 2 years.
In that meantime, three films of theirs were dropped onto streaming; Soul (2020), Luca (2021), Turning Red (2022). And when it finally came time to return to the big screen, Pixar unfortunately were re-entering the race with a bum horse called Lightyear (2022). Essentially, all of the brand value that they had in the previous decade was undercut by their parent company’s decision to have them drive up their streaming service’s membership instead. And this was despite the positive critical response that these movies received; Soul even went on to win a couple of Oscars. These movies were finding an audience thankfully, but their absence from the movie theaters was affecting the brand’s selling power as well. People were just not being drawn to theaters anymore because they had to see the new Pixar movie. This was evident by the weak opening weekend numbers of Pixar’s next film, Elemental (2023). The movie thankfully managed to stay afloat thanks to strong word of mouth, but even still it was far from Pixar’s peak performance. But then came a sequel to the studio’s rescue; Inside Out 2. People figured that the sequel to the award winning 2015 original would do much better at the box office, but I’m sure few imagined just how well it would do. The movie became Pixar’s biggest moneymaker ever both at the domestic and worldwide box office. It’s unfortunate that it had to be a franchise film that turned around Pixar’s fortunes, but at the same time Inside Out 2 was still made with the high quality animation and storytelling that has become a bedrock of the studio. With a big win in their column now, Pixar is hoping that it will have strong downhill effects for their follow-ups. Originally, their newest film, Elio (2025) was supposed to precede Inside Out 2, but considering that it’s production was delayed a bit by the strikes in 2023, it was decided to push the film a full year and let Inside Out 2 carry the slack for the year. It may have worked to Elio’s benefit because now they can ride the crest of the wave of it’s predecessor’s huge win. The only question is, is Elio another positive step in the right direction for Pixar, or is it another flop waiting to happen that can’t carry the weight of Pixar’s valuable brand.
Elio is another in a long line of coming-of-age stories that have been central to Pixar’s body of work. A young little boy named Elio (Yonas Kibreab) has recently lost his parents in an accident and now has to live under the care of his Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldana), an Air Force major responsible for running a program that tracks space debris. While spending time with her on the base, Elio wanders into an exhibit that details the history of the Voyager 1 spacecraft and how it has explored deep into outer space, sending a message from Earth to distant worlds within the cosmos. Blown away by all this, he wishes to explore the cosmos himself. A couple years later, he has devised a plan to get himself abducted by aliens. His obsession has left him isolated from his community, and estranged from his stressed out aunt. Things come to a head when Elio ends up using the satellites on the base to send out a message to outer space in the hopes that someone will hear him. This incident leads Olga to put Elio in a youth camp where he’ll be trained to be more disciplined. But, while trying to stay out of the wrath of bullies at the camp, Elio ends up finding out that his message was received. An alien spacecraft arrives and beams him light years away to another world. He soon finds himself at a space station that operates like a intergalactic United Nations, and they are seeking new worlds to join their ranks, including Earth. With the help of a super computer named Ooooo (Shirley Henderson), he’s given a universal translator that helps him communicate with all of the Alien ambassadors present there, including Ambassador Questa (Jameela Jamil), Ambassador Tegmen (Matthias Schweighofer) and Ambassador Helix (Brandon Moon). There’s only one problem, they are all under the impression that Elio is the leader of Earth. Complicating things even more, a war lord Emperor named Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett) is also threatening the council of the Communiverse if they don’t honor his membership. In order to fit in and continue his charade, Elio volunteers to speak with Lord Grigon on his dreadnought ship, but he soon learns he’s out of his league and becomes imprisoned. On the ship, Elio meets Grigon’s young son Glordon (Remy Edgerly), who may be his ticket out of trouble. Is Elio able to fit in with this weird and often dangerous alien world, or will he learn that he needs to make things right on Earth first.
Elio is the first directorial effort of Pixar veteran after Adrian Molina after his co-directing work with Lee Unkrich on Coco (2017). It’s easy to see that coming-of-age stories are something that he’s drawn to as a storyteller as there are quite a few parallels between the two movies. Both involve an adolescent boy with big dreams getting a chance to visit a fantastical world where he’s able to live out his fantasy; but along the way they realize that their dreams also clash with reality and it makes them confront something about themselves that challenges their viewpoints. All of this isn’t to say that Elio is directly copying Coco beat for beat; it just shows that Molina seems to work comfortably with this kind of narrative. And indeed he does make Elio’s story a wonderful and engaging one. Elio will indeed be a crowd pleasing movie for many people. It’s funny, colorful, and even has a good heart that hits some powerful emotional beats. I’d say the one thing that works against the film is that it isn’t terribly original either. It does cook with all of the Pixar movie ingredients that we all like and uses them well, but it all comes together in a meal that feels perhaps a tad bit familiar. Elio isn’t quite as groundbreaking in it’s concept, as demonstrated with it’s similarities to Coco, and visually it is borrowing a lot of inspiration from a lot of things that we’ve already seen done in other Pixar Animation movies. Is it just me, or does some of the designs of the Communiverse station feel like they were pulled out of the world of Inside Out. With all that said, everything is still done well in the movie. It may be formulaic, but the movie doesn’t suffer too much from that. I for one was still finding myself entertained throughout. But you can definitely tell when the movie was falling back on already tread ground when it was struggling to find it’s way. Oddly enough, it’s the Earthbound stuff that was where the movie was finding it’s most inspired moments. I especially loved the way they dealt with what Aunt Olga was going through while Elio was off on his adventure.
The movie’s greatest asset overall is the character of Elio. He’s certainly not the first young protagonist in a Pixar movie, and he’s actually part of a recent trend of the studio focusing on adolescent stories. Elio comes to us after the likes of Miguel from Coco, Luca from Luca and Meilin from Turning Red, but he’s still able to stand out amidst all of them. The thing that makes the character of Elio so enjoyable to watch in the film is that the filmmakers aren’t afraid to make him a bit of a problem child. There are a lot of similarities between him and Lilo from Lilo & Stitch (2002), and that’s not a bad comparison at all. Elio is essentially a nice kid, but he also has a bad temper and is a bit of a habitual liar as well. The movie also makes a strong point that this obsession he has had with exploring the universe has made him withdrawn and alone, which is an interesting character flaw to give to a young character like him. Elio’s journey is much more than getting the chance to explore the universe; it’s also about coming to understand that having a myopic obsession becomes a roadblock to your maturity as a person. The movie thankfully never shames Elio for being a bit of a weirdo. But it does confront Elio with the fact that he does need to grow up in order to be a better person. When he is taken to the Communiverse, he realizes very quickly that his dreams have done little to prepare him for real world situations. It does the coming-of-age trope very well in this regard, and the many layers of Elio’s character help to make the story resonate. I have a feeling that many kids are going to find the character relatable, and the message that Pixar is sending with the movie is one that is worthwhile for young viewers. It’s okay to dream and be a free spirit, but also have a sense of your responsibilities to those you love and the world you live in. All the while, Pixar does a great job giving Elio a winning personality that makes him feel both animated but also real at the same time. I especially like the fact that he not only has come up with his own language (which is a very kid thing to do) but he also figured out the correct grammar in that language as well. His voice, provided by a talented young actor named Yonas Kibreab, also brings a lot of warmth and humor to the role. You know when Pixar is working well with it’s storytelling when they can make yet another child protagonist in their long line of movies still feel wholly unique and different.
The remainder of the cast are more of a mixed bag. The one drawback of having such a strong main character in the movie is that his development kind of takes away from all of the other secondary characters in the story. Elio’s Aunt Olga perhaps suffers the most in available screen-time, because for the sake of building up the middle act of the movie, her character needs to be sidelined. That being said, she does come across as a fully rounded character herself. It’s helpful that she’s voice by newly minted Oscar winner Zoe Saldana, whose adding yet another prime role in her body of work for Disney, following appearances in the Guardians of the Galaxy and Avatar franchises. Her vocal performance hits the right marks with showing Olga’s frustrations with all of Elio’s bad behavior as well as her desire to do right in raising him up in the absence of his parents. The alien characters also are a mixed bag, as many of them don’t really stand out given the short amount of run time we spend with them. One of the stand outs is Brad Garrett as Lord Grigon. Garrett is a veteran of many different Pixar films, including playing Bloat in Finding Nemo (2003) and Gusteau in Ratatouille (2007), and he brings his comically bassy voice to yet another memorable character in one of their films. I like the fact that his vocal performance is able to find range between menacing and comical without making the shifts feel out of character. It’s a character that could’ve easily turned one note, and thankfully Brad Garrett is a veteran of the medium to where he can make the character a lot more multi-faceted. Newcomer Remy Edgerly is also a standout with his hilariously upbeat performance as Grigon’s young son Glordon. The contrast between Glordon’s more monstrous appearance (kind of like a mini version of the sand worms from Dune) and his hyperactive childish personality is especially fun to watch, and the movie gets a lot of humorous mileage out of the character. Edgerly also has strong chemistry with Elio’s voice actor Yonas, and the interaction between the two is a definite highlight of the movie. And in the Pixar tradition, the strength of the cast is not in the names on the marquee but rather by how well the actor fit their role. Zoe Saldana is perhaps the biggest name in this cast, and she’s not even the main character. Everyone is perfectly suited for their roles in the film, and it makes for another great Pixar cast of characters.
The film also has a strong visual sense too, even though a lot of it does feel derivative. Pixar has never faltered when it comes to their visuals, even on some of their lesser films, and Elio continues their winning streak in this department. I especially like the contrast that the movie delivers with the Earthbound moment and the celestial ones. The Earth scenes feel natural with a muted color palette. Then once the aliens come to “abduct” Elio, the palette begins to pop. It’s a lot like the shift found in The Wizard of Oz (1939), though no sepia was used this time. While the visual motif of the Communiverse feels perhaps a bit too close to the organic looking fantasy-scape of Inside Out, it still had a lot of beauty to it as well. It’s also cool to see the work put into making all of the aliens unique in their designs. There aren’t a lot of repeating alien types in those scenes, which tells you that Pixar allowed their artists to go wild with their imaginations, and most of it does make it on the screen. The movie definitely gives the story a very adventurous feel, surprising us at every corner with all the stuff we are about to see. And while there is a lot of familiarity to a lot of the sci-fi tropes in this movie, many of them are fun send-ups of those cliches as well. What they do with cloning in this movie is especially imaginative, and it leads to some of the best laughs in the movie. In many ways, I feel like this movie pays homage to a lot of kid-centric sci-fi movies of the 80’s and 90’s, like Flight of the Navigator (1986) and Explorers (1985) and helps to modernize those kinds of imaginative adventures for young audiences living today. At the same time, it does have the same heart-string pulling moments that have become a hallmark of Pixar. While the movie didn’t leave me misty eyed like the ending of Coco, the film does hit some emotional moments that I’m sure will warm the hearts of audiences both young and old. Also, I especially dug the music in this movie, provided by Rob Simonsen. It’s got a techno futuristic beat to it, but also it also hits those emotional moments very well, reminding me a lot of the Oscar winning work of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross on the Soul soundtrack. Overall, another extremely well crafted film from Pixar Animation.
It’s too early to tell just yet how Elio will be received. It will not be anywhere near the record-breaking box office of Inside Out 2, and early indicators suggest it may actually struggle out of the gate. The hope is that Inside Out 2’s success may have rebuilt the brand prestige to Pixar, but that will only be determined by Elio’s ability to stand on it’s own as a follow-up. There’s no doubt that Pixar still has the creative drive to deliver a worthwhile original film, but it’s going to be hard to convince audiences of that in this current animation market. Even now, the box office is dominated by not one but two live action remakes of classic animated movies; Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon. One positive that may work in Elio’s favor is that Pixar films are known to leg out well past their opening weekend. This was true with Elemental, which overcame a weak opening weekend to turn into a modest success at the box office. And all of those films that opened on streaming instead of in theaters have since gone on to become some of Pixar’s most popular recent films. Hopefully audiences will discover Elio over the course of the summer and if they don’t come in droves on opening weekend, hopefully word of mouth will keep it around for a long while. As far as Pixar movies go, I think it stands very well in contrast with some of their best work. I wouldn’t say it’s one of their all time greats (which is becoming an increasingly high bar to clear), but it’s definitely in the upper half of their filmography. The only thing that holds it back from a more perfect score is that a lot of it is formulaic and falls back on the familiar too many times. But, everything is still done extremely well, so there isn’t too much to complain about. It’s got one of their best main characters ever and has a story that still has a lot of charm, humor and warmth to it. And it should be said that we need to root for more movies like it, especially in an animation industry that is increasingly reliant on franchise appeal. There needs to be more fresh ideas in the animation market, and these new ideas need to be nurtured through audience interest. That’s how we can get a vibrant and bustling animation market back to not feeling like it’s not a cash grab anymore. Definitely see Elio if you can in a theater and keep looking up at those stars.
Rating: 8.5/10