"Elemental" Way Cuter Than It Should Be

 


    Look, get your fire boy and water girl jokes in, get the Pixar just asks if  "x" object has feelings jokes, I've seen it all. I too was once like you, my expectations for this film were at the absolute bottom. I suppose that's what happens when your entire social media presence is consumed by Twitter. I mean when this film first came out I was genuinely surprised, typically, I'll see some sort of social media hype or advertisements trying to showcase this show, but when I first saw advertisements for this movie I had thought it had already released. I was led to believe that it had came and went like the flop I had initially written it off to be, but it wasn't.

    I understand why you'd be skeptical, after all, Pixar's once near spotless record has seemingly become spottier and spottier with each passing year, but I wouldn't even consider this film some sort of return to form, I think that it's leaning into what's made the recent Pixar films so successful. Say what you want about both Luca and Soul, while I personally wasn't the biggest fans of those films, what I did appreciate was that it was trying to lean into more diverse personalities, instead of trying to be as general as possible to cast as wide a net as possible, it recognized that in order to make it more relatable, it has to show a little more character.

    I mean that's not to say that I think that Elemental is some amazing example of the immigrant experience pertaining to one specific culture, it still stays ambiguous enough that it draws from multiple cultures, but it's not afraid to be show what it's referencing, it's not afraid to show it's influences on its sleeves and that's great. I mean it shouldn't have to stick to one culture, after all the immigrant experience is a universal feeling amongst immigrants, and like Turning Red, another film that I thought did a great job of tuning into the culture of it's creator, Elemental manages to connect to me on a personal level.

    Take the setting of Zootopia, paired with the general over-the-topness of Inside Out and mix some of the overt cultural connections of Turning Red and you have Elemental. And what I think makes this entire film work is that it's just so gosh darn cute. As a very corny and goofy individual myself, while Wade did take a while to grow on me, I must admit that his relationship with Ember is just too darn cute. There were so many times when I was watching this film and I just looked at my sister and smiled because it was just so ridiculously adorable. Look, it's simple, but it works, and even though it's been done over and over again, Elemental somehow makes it so that it still has that same punch. 

Final Score: 80/100

    To be honest, I love this movie. I mean it's a tried and true formula of a love story, combined with the immigrant experience, and it touches upon a topic that many people do truly feel. I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed this film, I was unsure if I'd be able to be able to tap into it's emotions as strongly as I did. While others have not enjoyed this film as much as I have, I can see why it's such a big hit in Korea, as hilariously white as Wade can be, and as annoying as Clod can be, this movie is just too darn cute to resist. I mean who could go wrong with a solid feel-good film, and sometimes that's just what you need, I mean it's a kids movie, did you really expect it to lean harder into the racism?

 

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