Elemental Review – Review on FilmTotaal

Director: son of peter | Script: John Hoberg, Kat Likkel and Brenda Huseh | Cast: (voices): Leah Lewis (Ember), Mamoudou Athie (Wade), Ronnie del Carmen (Bernie), Shila Ommi (Cinder), Catherine O’Hara (Brook), ea | Time to play: 101 minutes | Year: 2023

There were times when you would run to the theater as soon as a new Pixar movie was showing. For a long time, the animation studio, which was founded in the late 1970s and featured the participation of such greats as George Lucas and Steve Jobs, was unparalleled. Not only the huge visual advantage, but especially the warm and well thought-out stories left the competitors behind.

Therefore, the word ‘failure’ was not in the vocabulary of the studio that was acquired by Disney in 2006 for a long time. However, in recent years it seems that the draft has settled. Possible causes include the forced departure of John Lasseter after allegations of transgressive behavior and the covid pandemic that caused the jump from movie theaters. titles like Forward[/i, [i]turning red in Luke they were nice enough, but they lacked any Pixar magic. the spinoff Light-year it went down in the books as the first real failure, after which the broom had to pass.

Elementary is the twenty-seventh animated feature from Pixar, steeped in the morals and personal experiences of director Peter Sohn, who moved to the United States from Korea at a young age. The colorful world is divided into the four elements earth, air, water and fire. The Element City metropolis has welcomed and embraced its various representatives for decades.

Fireflies Cindy and Bernie Lumen move to the big city and are initially ignored by the other elements. They are among the first fire elements to arrive in Elemental City and find refuge in a suburb where they start a grocery business. When her daughter Ember hits puberty, she wants nothing more than to take over her father’s business later. But she finds it difficult to cope with the responsibility of running her own business.

Ember gets into big trouble with her massive tantrums that scare customers away and set half the store on fire. If it appears that a basement leak has occurred, the consequences are incalculable. The city inspector, the water element Wade, threatens to close the case. Ember decides to do everything she can to avoid the shutdown and travels to the city hall. There she not only faces new problems, but also has to really listen to her heart for the first time.

The plot is divided into two parts, which are difficult to reconcile and flow into each other with difficulty. When most of the creases have been ironed out, a romantic comedy emerges that seems a bit awkward for this type of animated film. Through this filters the daring theme of xenophobia and discrimination. Sohn is to be commended for daring to tackle such a subject, but important and essential as it is, the filmmaker continues to beat us on it.

We are all different and that is precisely where our strength lies, the somewhat stale message. This is reflected not only in the plot, but also in the visual aspect. I could praise the external diversity of the characters, which was also Song’s intention, but the look of the fire elements in particular does not want to get used to. It produces good contrasts as soon as Ember and Wade fill the screen.

This twenty-seventh Pixar shows that the studio is looking for new angles and styles. That is not balanced. The main shortcoming is the frantic attempts to blend an immigrant story with a love story from iconic American rom-coms. However, this Pixar movie is the first in a long time to be preceded by a short film. This time we see Carl outside Above Enter the dating market.