Elemental - 4K Digital Review

[Michael Scott]

Elemental

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras: :
Final Score:


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Movie
I was just old enough to remember when Pixar first blasted onto the scene with Toy Story in the mid 1990s. At that point Disney was the only studio out there putting out truly amazing animated films, but their star had started to fade by that point, and Pixar literally became a hit studio overnight. Films like A Bug’s Life, Cars, Toy Story 2 and many more turned them into a studio that NO ONE would bad mouth. However, like all things, their star started to fade in the mid 2010s. Sure, we had films like Up and Coco to rely on, but stating “I’m going to see the new Pixar film” no longer became a giant family event where everyone wanted to go see it. The films began to get more and more derivative when Good Dinosaur came along, and at this point, they and Disney have pretty much become interchangeable as the kings of cookie cutter animate films that recycle the same plot lines over and over again.

Elemental has been one of their most problematic releases yet, with a silver lining. The film originally was slated to become one of Pixar’s biggest theatrical flops, with an abysmal first few weeks of its theatrical run, and some of it’s harshest critics were lambasting the film for being “just another woke Pixar/Disney film!”. I doesn’t hurt that it was up against a few heavy hitters, but for some oddball reason the little film kept trucking along. Week by week it chipped away at that box office deficit, until it finally appears that it may well be profitable. That may sound shocking to say “oh wow! It may break a small profit!”, but after the deluge of critics panning it and the horrible box office receipts, that alone actually is a pretty impressive feat for the little film that could.

I’ve said this before, but I fully agree that Pixar has had some massive film making blunders ever since John Lassiter left the studio (not claiming that he alone is the reason, but that time period was when things started going south). Their films have become more and more derivative, losing the Pixar charm that made them stand out above everyone else, and littered with mediocre sequels and bland plots. At the same time I roll my eyes at the online controversy where one side claims that every Disney/Pixar movie is a “woke” disaster, and the other claims that the other side is just trying to sabotage films. Reality is always less extreme (or USUALLY less extreme, as I have seen some films that have been justified in that moniker) and so is the case with Elemental.

Elemental tells a fairly generic story about immigrants coming to fulfill their American dream. However, instead of Ellis Island and Cubans/Italians/Jews/Irish etc, Pixar wraps the allegory into a weather related candy wrapper. The fantastic new world is Element City, and we see a lone fire family come to the new world to make a better life for themselves. Being that their fire can burn and is seen as offensive, the fire people are relegated to their section of the city where they in their cultural ghettos, content to stay away from the high and mighty Earth, wind and water folk. Soon our titular fire family give birth to a daughter named Ember (Leah Lewis) who grows up tending her father’s shop, being the good girl that her father dreamt of. Well, except for having a temper that could get a LITTTLE out of of hand. However, Ember’s life changes forever when a city water based city inspector named Wade (Mamoudou Athie) drops in just as the store’s water pipes burst.

Wade writes the store up for code violations with the pipes, but soon realizes that Ember is more than just a no name water girl. She’s special, and has a heart that burns hotter than even her chemistry would belie. Having a change of heart, Wade wants to help Ember save her father’s shop from being closed down due to the violations, but first they have to find the cause of the water leak that flooded the store in the first place. Soon one thing leads to another, and the two find out a little bit more about themselves, as well as the barriers that are between them and said barriers own limitations of what can keep like minded people apart.

Elemental is not a train wreck of a movie, but it does suffer very greatly from being cookie cutter and rather rote. It takes the age old Romeo and Juliet story of two star crossed lovers from different sides of the tracks, and blends it with Hollywood’s age old tale of immigrant survival stories. You can literally pick a race, or pick a culture that has seen Hollywood fame and transpose that over the top of Elemental. There’s bits of Westside Story, every Italian pizza romance movie ever made, and the film does NOT deviate at all from those cliches. You can see the beats coming a mile away, and there’s very little suspense to the entire thing. It really feels emblematic of the studio’s obvious desire to cath hold of the original movie magic it had during the 90s and early 2000s, but it feels like a film written by an AI algorithm vs. anything unique or new. At times it feels disjointed and nonsensical, while other times it feels under developed and overly cheesy. The romance comes way too quickly, and the payoff is not ever once in doubt. Plus there is the issue of Wade himself. You get to see character development and genuine change with Ember throughout the film. She learns to control her tempter, gain autonomy as a young person, and still honor her parents at the same time. On the flip side, Wade is the same messy almost wimpy character that he was at the beginning. I applaud them for making him an empathetic character who is the other side of the coin from Ember, but there is ZERO character growth throughout the film. He doesn’t seem to grow any confidence, nor does he do anything but be an overly mushy “mess”. At times I almost felt like they were demasculating him on purpose.

At the same time, there is some genuine cuteness to the film. Leah and Mamoudou have great chemistry together and you really feel their emotions with their young adult romance. I know the film is cliché and rote, but I had more than a few moments where I had a smile on my face rooting for the pair. I guess you could say that while there is a lot that isn’t GREAT about the movie, it does everything well enough to be unoffendingly pleasant. There’s nothing to get mad over, and what is done right is done well enough to be comfortable and homey feeling. Which in turn, is also a negative to the film as that’s what keeps it from being utterly amazing like Pixar was in the past.




Rating:

Rated PG for some peril, thematic elements and brief language




Video:

Pixar has always been known for their amazingly unique visual animation styles, but over the years Disney’s art style has become more like Pixar, and Pixar has looked more like Disney to the point where they both look fairly identical. The animation style is fairly simplistic, but still shows the rounded edges and soft curves that Pixar films are really known for the. The colors literally burst off the screen with varying shades of blue, orange and green to the point where I was simply marveling at just how MUCH color was on screen. The HDR application makes for some really deep and inky dark tones, while also making the colors themselves more vibrant and saturated. Comparing to the non HDR 1080p version it was pretty noticeable that the colors just POP so much more. Detail levels are generally good, but never stupid high, as the style is more simplistic than your normal Pixar film. Still, a great looking presentation and the 4K UHD physical disc should be killer.








Audio:

Like usual with Disney based Atmos tracks, Elemental needs a substantial boost on the gain knob to get to reference levels. But when there the track really opens up. The raging of water exploding throughout the town, or the roaring of Ember’s fire rage really add some weight to the mix, and the subs get a decent workout throughout. Dialog is well placed in the center of the room, and the surrounds/overheads get a very impressive workout with the musical numbers and the small smattering of action (think water floods) in the film. I did feel the bass was not SUPERB (wow, this is shocking /sarcasm), but overall this was a very pleasant Atmos mix.







Extras:

• Filmmaker Commentary
• Deleted Scenes with Director's Introduction
• Paths to Pixar: The Immigrant Experience
• Next Stop: Element City
• Ember and Wade
• Theatrical Short: Carl's Date

Final Score: ​

Take what you will from the movie, but it really should be wrapped up as “unoffensive and familiar”. Pixar doesn’t blaze any new trails, nor is the film a damper (see what I did there? Please don’t fire me), but it simply is a cute little teenage oriented family film that just IS. I enjoyed it for what it was, yet at the same time really longed for the days when Pixar was unique and special. So at the end of the day I will give it a single thumbs up as a decent family family film. Nothing more, nothing less.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Ronnie Del Carmen, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Chatherine O'Hara, Shila Omni
Directed by: Peter Sohn
Written by: John Hoberg, Kat Likkel, Brenda Hsueh
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos
Subtitles: English
Studio: Pixar
Rated: PG
Runtime: 102 Minutes
Digital Release Date: August 15th, 2023

Recommendation: Cute Film

 

[Epoxy1]

I can't remember the last Pixar film I was excited to see....maybe Toy Story 4? I personally liked it but I was the only one in the family that gave it a thumbs-up.