Elemental
★★ 1/2
Marketing might have screwed Elemental over. Every trailer that I saw promoted, "From the people behind Inside Out," and this was the worst thing that it could do. Yes, the animation evokes Inside Out, but it's not nearly as deep or challenging as that Pixar film.
Once I was able to shed some preconceived expectations, I was able to rest a bit easier into the Elemental story. At the heart of it, it's capturing the emotion and stress of an immigrant's story, with a Romeo & Juliet romance to guide us through the journey. The problem is that the beats are far too predictable and cookie cutter. The visuals and the colors of the characters are fascinating, but the movie fails to incorporate scientific knowledge behind its world. Trust me, I'm the last person who wants a science lesson and I hate to compare movies, but in Inside Out, it was a psychology lesson masked as an adventurous, emotional moving film. Director Peter Sohrn leans too much on the visuals and missed his chance to add a deeper layer to the world that was created. The makeup of the Elemental characters are only there to serve the beats of the story instead of using them to make a connection with the audience.
The first half of this movie was surprisingly underwhelming, and I will stay that there was switch that was flipped and I found myself enjoying the second half more. But was that enough for me to recommend this? I never thought I would be dismissive about a Pixar film, but this one is pretty forgettable.
