| Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures | Release Date: June 16, 2023 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
21
Mixed:
23
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
With story beats and character turns that strain well beyond familiarity, Elemental matches formal adventure with storytelling timidity. Here is a new spin on the old formula, livened up by advances in technology and delivered with real artistry. The film is full of complex and volatile parts, all held together in the most elemental of containers.
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The storytelling suffers from the weight of that ambition, though Elemental at least pulls off fun world-building a la “Zootopia” with a city where the residents – of fire, water, earth and air persuasions – reflect four different cultural groups and ethnicities and don’t always get along.
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The stronger element (sorry) of this story is the relationship between Bernie and Ember, and how it underscores the way the expectations of every generation winds up resting heavily on the shoulders of the next. I’m not sure using different elements as a metaphor for the immigrant experience quite works beyond its broadest strokes, but it does at least add some heft to Elemental’s scenes between father and daughter, which do build to an affecting if extremely predictable conclusion.
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Had Pixar perhaps taken more risks with that plotline, they might have pleased a smaller demographic than such a project requires to be profitable, but they might also have delivered a movie on par with some of their best work. Instead, the elements all fit perfectly into place — so much so that water eventually puts out fire, and we’re left without much of an impression.
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The fact that Elemental can’t seem to get past its own elevator-pitch premise or avoid tripping over its teachable lessons, much less wring laughs and sobs from an opposites-attract love story, is a bit of a shock. It’s so busy trying to pen an op-ed that it forgets to give it a narrative structure and make it emotionally resonate. That’s just elementary.
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