'Elemental' Ignites A Familiar Tale
Elemental is sweet but familiar. Its setting is identical to another Pixar film, Inside Out. Both films feature characters who are elemental beings of some sort. Where Inside Out was a story about accepting change through a divorcing couple, Elemental represents the age-old tale of forbidden love. Fire and ice don't mix, but they fall in love nevertheless. What's present is a gentle love story revolving around acceptance that is familiar. Elemental may not be a great Pixar film, but a decent one. It's charming, touching, and average, with nothing new to add.
Elemental takes place in Element City, a gorgeous utopia where all elements of the earth live within their own part of town. Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire live within their subdivisions, hardly mingling with other elements outside their own as elements don't mix. In the fire side of town, Ember Lumen (Leah Lewis) works with her father, Bernie (Ronnie Del Carmen), at his store that sells all the elements a being made of fire would enjoy. From flaming rocks served like meatballs to grinded-down chunks of wood, everything for a hungry fire entity is there to consume. In the flame town, the water elements aren't welcomed. When retiring, Bernie plans to give his little princess the keys to his shop. However, those plans get spoiled when a building inspector made of water stirs things up. As a guy just doing his job, Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie) sends the paperwork to shut down Bernie's shop for having leaky pipes.
Trying to rescue her father's business from being shut down, Ember pursues Wade to get the appeal to whoever oversees foreclosed businesses. Although separate elements, Ember and Wade fall for one another in her path to save her dad's place. Their love is forbidden, as fire and water don't mix. Water can't touch fire, so how do the two engage in any physical contact? The differences between Wade and Ember are familiar to almost any recent animated film and classic in romance to Lady and the Tramp.
Wade's an affable, emotional bundle of joy, whereas Ember is pleasant until she gets angry. It's the classic positive versus negative persona. However, I'd hardly call Ember negative. Her temper gets in the way of her positivity. When Ember gets angry, her head bursts into flames burning everything around her path. There's a great bit of dialogue where Wade tells Ember that anger is us acting out because we can't accept something we have to do. It's accepting a change that either you or your family wants. Whose path will you choose on your end? Independence or Dependence? Ember loves her father, but the shop is his dream more than hers.
Elemental stays small in scope for all its large cities, narrowing things to Bernie's shop, "The Fireplace." If not for Ember's outbursts, she wouldn't have busted the pipes in the shop to cause Wade to drip through. Emberer's outburst brought Wade to her as if destiny called upon them to meet. The love story is familiar with its predictability, sometimes hindering boring. Elemental could easily become one of these animated films that get forgotten or mixed up with another movie that looks similar to it.
There's not much to be remembered by as the heart of the story doesn't hit the gut like Toy Story, Monsters Inc., or Wall-E does. Many of the recent Pixar films have felt relatively average. They're usually about a family that doesn't blend in with a certain type of people as an allegory for racism, and often the families are immigrants. Element City is a metropolitan haven version of early Ellis Island. One nice thing Elemental did that few other films haven't is when the elements come to peace with each other, it's only through the loving couple. There's no huge community gathering where the citizens of Waterworld and Fireworld get together, holding hands and dancing in the streets in unison.
There's a point in the film where things don't go in a predictable direction, or at least for a long enough time to fool me. I wish things would have stuck in that direction where the film would take a real chance. Yet I'd see why they wouldn't do that. You'd traumatize kids. But how much more traumatic can it be from the garbage incinerator scene from Toy Story 3 or Bambie's mom being shot? Playing everything safe, Elemental doesn't offer much more substance than any of Pixar's recent flicks. It takes a lot of work to produce great animated films. I get that. Classics only come along once every ten years.
Sadly, Elemental is not one of the great ones. It's a sentimental familiar tale for children examining race and immigration. How well it tackles such issues is only okay. Despite its original ideas, the film's familiarity hinders its overall quality. It's best to wait for this one to add to the Disney Plus stream queue before forking out money for a night at the theater with this one.
