I meant to see this at the cinema at some point, but as it's now landed on Disney plus it seemed to make more sense to sit down with my son and watch it here. Whilst I don't think either of us would count it as our favourite Pixar movie, we both enjoyed it enough.
Element City is a melting pot city for its inhabitants, who are divided into one of four groups based on what element they are; Fire, Earth, Water or Wind. Ember (Leah Lewis) is a second-generation fire element who has been long destined to take over the family store, though her explosive temper has gotten in the way. She meets Wade (Mamodou Athie) a water element business inspector, who is investigating leakages and the pair bond, despite her parent's mistrust of water elements. The pair continue to grow close, whilst investigating the leaks together and Ember starts to question what she wants in life.
Whilst Pixar have certainly had films with elements for grown ups before, this is perhaps their most 'grown up' film to date. By that I mean it's a pretty straightforward romance story. The leak storyline provides the film with a reason for them to stick together, as well as featuring in the conclusion, but it's not "the plot" - we never feel like we're going on a quest, as with "Onward" or even "Coco". It's almost entirely about whether or not Ember and Wade can make it work. Within that, you have a story about immigration about whether sticking to one's own kind, and own traditions are better than amalgamating to something new, or not. And within that, a story about the pressures of second-generation immigrants and the pressures of living up to the sacrifice that your parents made.
I think I feel opposite to most critics on this, as where it didn't particularly work for me was visually. I thought that whilst the geography and architecture was OK, the actual character models themselves didn't really work.
Comparing Pixar films to other Pixar films isn't, in retrospect, particularly fair - particularly if, like this film, they're going to make a film that's in a different genre to the adventures that they usually provide. I can't imagine I'll choose to watch "Elemental" again, but I was entertained enough and I'm glad it exists.
