Elemental (PG)

Dir: Peter Sohn

Pixar’s latest fable is a cute and charming cross-cultural love story for the whole family to enjoy.

There has been question marks of late over the quality of animated films being produced by Pixar. With the rise of Sony Pictures Animation and Illumination in the past decade, providing stiff competition to the Disney owned animation company, it seems that the quality of their own animated films has started to drop off. Pixar have released some good animated films in recent years , such as Soul and Coco. They have also produced some of the least successful films in their thirty year history in this time however, such as Onward, Turning Red and Lightyear.

What was once a juggernaut in the animated film industry, Pixar is now a shadow of it’s former self with films like Super Mario Bros. and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse outperforming their latest release ‘Elemental‘ at the U.S. Box Office. I caught ‘Elemental‘ at a ‘Secret Screening’, a promotional tool used by U.K. cinema chains to get more audiences in the cinema to see films before their official release date – without knowing what film will be showing. Once the BBFC title card came up to reveal what film was install for us, about thirty to forty people left the screening, a true indication how far Pixar has fallen.

Before the start of the film we were treated to the trademark, animated short film that Pixar and Disney show prior to any main feature film. I am not here to review this short film, but it followed Carl and Dug from 2009’s Up, as Carl tries to get ready for a date in his old age. It was only a few minutes long but it was a nice tribute to Carl’s voice actor, Ed Asner, who died in 2021.

‘Elemental’ starts by introducing us to Bernie (Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi), two ‘fire-people’, as they arrive in the fabular Element City. A vibrant metropolis that is home to people made up of all four elements: Water, Earth, Air and of course Fire. Being seen as more “disruptive” than the other three elements, ‘fire-people’ are in the minority in Element City, and are discriminated against by the other elements. This leads Bernie and Cinder moving out of the city limits to start the aptly named ‘Fire Town’. A few years later and ‘Fire Town’ is thriving, with Bernie and Cinder as the original first-generation of immigrants from the old country to come to Element City. Bernie runs the family store with the dream he can soon retire and hand the store over to his hot-tempered daughter, Ember (Leah Lewis).

Left alone to run the shop one day, Ember’s explosive temper gets the better of her and she crack’s the pipes within the stores basement, causing it to flood and subsequently bringing a watery young man to their premises. This is Wade (Mamoudou Athie), a young, soppy building inspector, who having seen the issues with the leaking water pipes, is set out to give Ember’s family numerous citations that will see the store shut down. After hearing Ember’s pleas to not have her family store and home shut down, Wade attempts to help Ember in getting the citations overturned. What follows is a Romeo and Juliet style love story, that sees both Ember and Wade fall for each other despite coming from contrasting backgrounds, as they figure out if water and fire could ever mix.

I was pleasantly surprised by ‘Elemental‘, after hearing the luke-warm reactions it was getting and poor box-office returns in the U.S. I was sceptical. Not often do Pixar attempt to produce a film that is a romance above all else, and despite it’s high-concept premise and themes of immigration and xenophobia, ‘Elemental’ is a love story at it’s core. There are countless cute and charming moments between the two leads, as Wade shows Ember the wonders of Element City. The colourful animation and world-building of ‘Elemental‘ allow for some delightful imagery as well as plenty of visual gags.

I think the romantic element and the visual style are the strengths of ‘Elemental‘, but the films underlying themes of immigration and xenophobia feel thin. Maybe I am expecting too much from a family orientated animated film, but Pixar have managed to touch on serious themes before so I wish there was more of that here. The central theme of xenophobia in a sprawling metropolis has been seen before with greater effect in 2016’s Zootropolis (Zootopia in the U.S.).

All being said, ‘Elemental’ is as a more than serviceable entry into the Pixar canon and is a cute and heartfelt love story that the whole family can enjoy. It is not top-tier Pixar with the likes of Toy Story or Wall-E but if you are after a charming animated rom-com, ‘Elemental‘ has plenty of heart and will leave you smiling.

Elemental is now showing in Cinemas