Maybe it’s because the studio had to endure a couple of years of Disney+ premieres thanks to COVID and the morale is still low, but does anyone else feel like the luster has gone a little from Pixar’s lamp? Oh sure, their visual panache has arguably never been stronger with fables like Soul rewriting the book on how CGI animation can look and entries like Luca giving us gorgeous surroundings you’ll yern to holiday in; but while they’re still able to produce thoroughly likable adventures with relatable characters, that extra special something that helped the studio change the very face of cinematic animation seems to be in short supply.
This feeling is full in effect in their latest offering, Elemental, which, as expected, delivers top-of-the-line world building to go with its ambitious concept, yet stubbonly refuses to linger in the memory once its fires have gone out and its tides have receded.
Ember Lumen is the child of immigrant parents who moved to Element City after disaster swept their homelands but after years of toil and weathering xenophobia (Element City, with its water, air and earth residents isn’t exactly built with fire folk in mind), Bernie is almost ready to retire and proudly pass on his store, naturally called the Fireplace, onto his daughter – the only thing stopping him from doing so? Her fiery temper.
Ever the dutiful child, Ember struggles to keep her literally explosive rage fits in check, but after a particularly trying sale day, she unleashes her flaming frustrations in the basement, destroying the water pipes in the process. Needless to say, having a flooded basement in a town where everyone is made of fire is incredibly dangerous, but making matters worse is that water person and city inspector, Wade Ripple, emerges from the leak having been sucked in while trying to find the source.
While sympathetic, Wade still has to file his reports of the Faculty piping that, if processed, could extinguish the Fireplace for good, so Ember has to go to Element City to plead the case before her father finds out.
Aided by the empathetic Wade – water people are somewhat emotional – the couple try to undo all the issues their meeting has inadvertently caused, but in doing so spark an emotional relationship neither could have thought possible which makes Ember question what it actually is that she truly wants from life.
However, despite the obvious, practical problems – can fire and water actually mix without Ember vaporising Wade’s ass everytime they want to sneak a kiss? – there’s also the issue of Bernie’s gargantuan distrust of water people caused by years of being treated differently. However, if the sizzling couple don’t keep their attention on the matter at hand, that leak could eventually spell disaster for the Fire district.
The notion of anthropomorphized elements falling in love in a city comprised of earthy, windy, watery and fiery beings just trying to get along is just so inherently Pixar, I’m genuinely amazed that the studio has taken this long to get this concept on screen. Making a mockery of the fact that computer generated imagery once struggled to convincingly render water or fire by making them the leads of an animated rom-com, Elemental is yet another feast for the eyes as details both great (wind people crackle with lightning when angry) and small (note the T-Shirt that bears the legend “Kiss Me, I’m Fireish”) dance before you with unlimited imagination that once again reveals why the animation giant is virtually unparalleled when it comes to world building. And yet, as layered and conceptually beguiling as Elemental is, there’s a cloud on the horizon that takes that stunning imaginative streak and makes it look strangely dated. After two animated Spider-Verse movies that literally tore up the rule book and essentially beat Pixar at their own game by throwing in changing frame rates and animation styles to bolster the medium to new heights, Elemental seems a little… quaint. Worse yet, you’ll find yourself picking unnecessary holes in the nature of Element City – such as why is some water alive and other water is just water and if air is a living thing, what’s providing the oxygen for fire to burn? These are hardly movie ruining questions, but thoughts like this never materialized while I was watching Inside Out or Finding Nemo.
Outside of the lush animation, we find the plot following typical, romantic comedy style beats as the two opposites will eventually attract as Ember’s world suddenly grows. However, the very prevalent themes of race and xenophobia, while admirable, never really hit the heights of Zootopia, despite leaning heavily on the fact that Bernie and his wife Cinder constantly refer to their original home as “the old country” and are fiercely protective of their culture while others are either casually dismissive or genuinely wary of them. It works, but some may find it a bit preachy despite the fact that Pixar have been putting positive messages in their movies since day one and the overall moral of the story is somewhat blurred by the fact that… well, fire is actually quite dangerous.
The vocal performers are great with Leah Lewis inhabiting the role of Ember completely despite her flickering onscreen visage looking remarkably like Ginger Gonzaga from She-Hulk, but some may initially find Mamoudou Athie’s constantly weeping Wade a bit… well, wet – but then that’s supposed to be the point as rom-com laws dictate that the fiery character needs a more sensitive soul in order to unlock the person inside, or something.
While the relationship and subsequent romance between the two leads is genuinely sweet, the plot itself may be a bit low-key to stop amy little ones from actively fidgeting because, if you take the love story out, the story is essentially about two people trying to find a leak and while other Pixar films have usually take a more casual approach to adventure (stripped to its basics, Mike and Sully from Monsters Inc. are merely having a shitty day at work and Carl from Up just wants to go travelling), the plumbing adventures of Ember and Wade just doesn’t have enough magic to hold your attention past the dazzling visuals.
Director Peter Sohn had similar problems with The Good Dinosaur which, despite its magnificently bonkers premise (essentially an episode of Little House On The Prairie with dinosaurs), also came in a little flat. But even though you’re pretty much guaranteed to both laugh and cry, you won’t take much of Elemental with you once you leave the theater. So, hardly a disaster; but you have to believe that if Pixar had made this ten years earlier, it probably would have smashed it; still, if only all “lesser” animated movies where this good, eh?
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