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Hindustan Times
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Elio movie review: This lifeless coming-of-age drama, the worst from Pixar, lacks self-belief just like its protagonist
In an age where everything is a remake or a sequel, Pixar has developed a reputation as one of the rare Hollywood studios that delivers 'original programming'. Fresh off the success of Inside Out 2, the animation giant comes out with Elio, the tale of a boy who doesn't quite fit in. And strangely enough, the same problem exists with the film as well. It is as tepid as it is predictable, and despite everything going for it, Elio just fails to get off the ground. The film is about the titular Elio, an orphan who lives with his aunt but never quite fits in. Elio dreams about being abducted by aliens, and behold, it does happen. The only issue is that the aliens—a conglomerate of the universe's finest called the Communiverse—assume he is Earth's leader. To stay in the Communiverse, he must negotiate peace with a warmonger named Lord Grigon, an alien warlord. But this may be more than Elio bargained for. Technically, there is hardly anything wrong with Elio. It is a well-animated film with visuals that jump out at you. The alien species look different enough, and yet innocent enough. The animators have even managed to bring the trademark Pixar-cuteness to the warmongering race of aliens. Elio also appears likeable, despite his quirks and pre-teen rebellion. The world-building is solid, with the Communiverse growing on you as the film progresses. But all that is largely on the surface. The film is a breezy feel-good affair that draws a few chuckles here and a few awws there. But Pixar has raised the bar so high over the years that all this feels bare minimum for a film from this stable. The emotional connect, which is the trademark of any good Pixar film, is missing here. We like Elio, but do we relate to him? The emotion of not fitting and feeling alone is so universal that the film should have easily tapped into it. Yet, Elio cannot manage what a non-human robot did over a decade ago (here's the mandatory Wall-e mention in a Pixar story). But even minus the emotional connect, Elio had the chance to be entertaining and engaging. It fumbles that, too, with some dull and lifeless storytelling. Elio gets predictable pretty quickly and resorts to tried-and-tested tropes, never staying ahead of the audience. If you have seen any two Pixar films in your life, or any two films for that matter, you can easily predict the next plot point and the next red herring. That takes the sheen away from what is developing as a solid entertaining film. The only thing going for Elio is its originality. The story may be age-old, but the treatment is new. The concept, however cliched, is presented in a 21st-century manner. Add to that the stunning visuals, and you have at least a watchable film, if not an enjoyable one. Elio takes universal tropes and themes, like all Pixar films, but only scratches the surface while dealing with them. Once you have seen genre-defining treatments of identity crisis (Soul), longing (Finding Nemo), and anxiety (Inside Out), it is hard to settle for just bang average.
Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Pixar needs original animated hits. They're much harder to come by at the box office
For decades, Pixar could hardly miss with its original animated films. Whether the subject was toys, fish or a cantankerous old man, the Emeryville-based computer animation studio churned out hit after hit. But since the COVID-19 pandemic, Pixar and other animation studios have struggled to break through at the box office with the same kinds of original movies that defined the industry. Instead, sequels such as 'Inside Out 2' have ruled the genre. This weekend, Walt Disney Co.-owned Pixar will face its latest test with the release of 'Elio,' an original film about a young boy who seeks connection with aliens to make up for his loneliness on Earth. The movie is currently tracking to bring in $18 million to $25 million in ticket sales from the U.S. and Canada during its opening weekend, according to box office analysis. (The film's reported budget is in the range of $150 million to $200 million.) That would be considered a soft debut by Pixar standards, indicating the dilemma the animation business — and the movie industry writ large — faces with original content. While audiences often say they want to see new stories, box office ticket sales show they gravitate toward sequels, reboots and other familiar fare. 'You need to be launching new franchises to keep the pipeline fresh,' said Doug Creutz, senior media and entertainment analyst at TD Cowen. 'Since the pandemic ended, original animated films have just been getting killed at the box office ... no matter how good they are.' Pixar executives, nonetheless, say they're committed to telling original stories, which are key to the future health of the industry. 'You wouldn't have Pixar without 'Toy Story,' our first original film 30 years ago!' Pixar Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter wrote in an emailed statement. 'And while we also love digging into new layers of familiar worlds and characters through our sequels, I'd say there's a unique thrill in unearthing a new story.' Disney and Pixar's previous original movie 'Elemental' made just $29.6 million in its opening weekend in 2023, causing many in the industry to write it off as a flop, before strong word-of-mouth reviews propelled the film to a solid worldwide gross of $496 million. Sister studio Walt Disney Animation Studios has also recently struggled with originals, including 2022's 'Strange World' and 2023's 'Wish.' The pandemic had a major effect on theatrical attendance for animated films. At the onset, studios including Pixar put their new animated movies on streaming services to give families something to watch during the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders and keep people from spreading the disease. Movies like 2020's 'Soul,' 2021's 'Luca' and 2022's 'Turning Red' were all sent straight to the Disney+ streaming service. Despite critical acclaim — winning an Academy Award for animated feature — 'Soul' grossed just $121.9 million in worldwide theatrical revenue. Even when movie theaters started reopening, families were slow to return due to concerns about health and familiarity with watching movies at home, which dented animated films' box office potential. Pixar's 2022 'Toy Story' spinoff 'Lightyear' did poorly at the box office partially due to this timing, as well as quality issues, marketing challenges and right-wing backlash to an on-screen kiss between a same-sex couple. Other studios, too, face challenges with originals. Universal Pictures' 2023 original animated movie 'Migration' also saw a soft box office total. The same year, Universal grossed more than $1 billion from 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie,' based on the Nintendo game franchise. Last year, Universal's 'The Wild Robot,' which is adapted from a 2016 children's book, debuted to strong reviews, but grossed $333 million in box office revenue, compared to the $492 million reaped by Paramount Pictures' 'Sonic the Hedgehog 3.' Now family films are ruling the box office. So far this summer, many of the films that have propelled the box office are family-friendly — Warner Bros. Pictures' 'A Minecraft Movie,' and live-action remakes 'Lilo & Stitch' from Disney and 'How to Train Your Dragon' from Universal. Last year, Pixar's 'Inside Out 2' hauled in nearly $1.7 billion in global box office revenue last year, while Universal and Illumination Entertainment's 'Despicable Me 4' grossed $969.6 million worldwide and Disney's 'Moana 2' made $1 billion. The common denominator among these films? They're all sequels, reboots or rely on known intellectual property. But industry insiders and analysts say that simply focusing on new chapters of existing stories risks making the animation space stale. 'If you're trying to grow the business, you need new content, you need new franchises, you need new things for people to be excited about,' said Creutz of TD Cowen. But beyond the box office, Pixar original films can get exposure — and drive business — through other parts of the Disney empire. Movies eventually debut on Disney+ and characters will show up on merchandise or in the theme parks, which can expand a film's reach. 'Pixar is in the long-term business,' said David A. Gross, who writes a movie industry newsletter. 'They want to create stories that last, and if that works in bringing back a sequel, great, but there is enormous value for streaming for these pictures, whatever they do in theatrical. There are a lot of revenue streams.' Pixar intends to release three movies every two years, and the company's strategy is to make one original for every sequel, company sources said. For instance, 'Elio' was intended for release in 2024, but was delayed by the dual writers' and actors' strikes of 2023. Instead, it swapped with 'Inside Out 2' since sequels can be easier to move through the production process due to existing assets. 'Pixar was really instrumental in defining the look and the feel and the tone of computer-animated films,' said Christopher Holliday, a senior lecturer in liberal arts and visual cultures education at King's College London, who wrote a book about computer-animated films. The company 'is now at one of those crossroads where they are trying to balance films that have an audience built into them,' Holliday said. 'And then they're also balancing their identity as a studio of innovation that is pushing the boundaries and the limits of computer animation.' Next year, Pixar plans to release 'Toy Story 5' as well as an original film called 'Hoppers' about a new technology that allows humans and animals to communicate. In 2027, Pixar said it will debut 'Gatto,' an original movie about a cat with multiple lives. 'We think audiences love originals too,' Docter said. 'Sure, it might be a bit harder nowadays to break through all the noise out there, but if we do our jobs, and create something that people will love, we trust that audiences will show up.'
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Elio review – Pixar's goofy, giddy guide to the galaxy offers charm and vulnerability
There are some sweet retro-Spielbergian thrills in Pixar's amiable new family animation, whose release was delayed a year due to the strikes; it also has some touches of Douglas Adams as well as John Lasseter's Toy Stories. There are co-director credits for Pixar stalwarts Adrian Molina (who was the co-director and co-screenwriter of Coco) and feature first-timer Madeline Sharafian, and Pixar will be hoping for a handsome return here to match the success of its recent box office champ Inside Out 2. Elio may well indeed do the business. It has charm, likability and that potent ingredient: childhood loneliness and vulnerability. Its opening act is set aboard a military base where an ambitious young officer has postponed or even abandoned her dream of being astronaut to look after her orphaned nephew. But once the film leaves planet Earth and its recognisably real, lump-in-the-throat emotional world and inhabits the goofy multi-voiced arena of space aliens, it loses, for me, a little (though not all) of its charge. There is occasionally something a little formulaic, a bit programmatic and … well … which two letters of the alphabet sum it up? The film takes place in the present day, though references to 'ham radios' might confuse you a little. Yonas Kibreab voices Elio, a little boy with a tousled short haircut, like Barry who opens the door to the aliens in Close Encounters, or Alfred E Neuman on the front of Mad magazine. He is deeply traumatised and depressed by the death of his mum and dad and now lives on the base with his aunt Olga, voiced by Zoe Saldaña, a smart, squared-away young unmarried officer who is now his legal guardian. She is at her wit's end, utterly at a loss as to how to get through to him. A visit to the space-exploration museum turns things around. Elio is thrilled by the exhibit dedicated to Nasa's Voyager 1 space probe which launched in 1977, sending out a message of peace to any life forms in outer space. So he starts transmitting poignant pleas to any intergalactic life form to abduct him because no one loves him down here on Earth. (Here, the movie surely missed a trick in not using the Carpenters' version of Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft on the soundtrack.) Due to a bizarre quirk of events, Elio finds himself being mistaken for Earth's official ambassador by a benign, UN-style outer space assembly called the Communiverse, and asked to negotiate on their behalf with the aggressive alien Lord Grigon (voiced by Brad Garrett) who wants to take everything over. Elio fatefully makes contact with Grigon's troubled, peaceful son Glordon (Remy Edgerly). There are plenty of nice touches. Before starting negotiations with the terrifying Lord Grigon, Elio has schooled himself in what can only be called the art of the deal, and reminds himself: 'Start from a position of power.' Whoever can have inspired screenwriters Julia Cho, Mark Hammer and Mike Jones on this? And given that the film was ready in 2023, could it be that they considered this person a harmless figure of fun, apt for marginal humour and safely confined to the dustbin of history? Maybe. The cosmic crisis continues, complicating Elio's relationship with Glordon – leading to a very Spielbergian near-death incident – and with his ersatz mother. Plot developments mean, perhaps oddly, that Elio has to wear a blue eyepatch for much of the movie, a contrivance that facilitates an identity reveal. Overall, it's an entertaining bit of summer fun. Elio is out on 19 June in Australia, and on 20 June in the UK and US.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
I Got To See 25 Minutes Of Elio At Pixar Animation Studios, And I Am Ready To Be Emotionally Wrecked
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Growing up with early Pixar movies was such a treasure during my upbringing, and I'm happy to see the next generation of kids have another great era of original movies from the studio to look forward to. Although Pixar Animation Studios' biggest commercial success in recent years was definitely last year's Inside Out 2, I also like that they've also stayed true to their roots by making a host of new characters and plot lines through Elemental, Turning Red, Luca and now the upcoming release of Elio. And, after getting to see 25 minutes of Elio at the animation studio, I have hope it's going to be another solid feature for the whole family. Earlier this month, Pixar invited CinemaBlend to its campus in Emeryville, California, alongside other journalists to see twenty-five minutes of the feature and learn more about the making of the movie straight from the filmmakers. Now it's finally time to share my experience of seeing some of the film! We were shown 25 minutes of the movie in four separate sections. The first segment was the very beginning of Elio, which opens on our main character, an 11-year-old boy with the titular name who has recently lost both his parents, sitting under the table of a dining establishment at a museum. His Aunt Olga, voiced by Zoe Saldaña, is asking him what sort of space-themed lunch he'd like to eat, but he just remains under the table gripping his legs in his hands. In his self-isolation, Elio ends up wandering into a space exhibit where a projection show plays on the ceiling as he lays on the ground in awe. It's a gorgeous sequence that only features limited dialogue through the exhibit's narration about the beauty of space, but pulled me into Elio, and the emotional core it'll be exploring. Sure, a lot of Disney characters (and famous heroes in media) are orphans, but I'm interested in how this movie is exploring how escapism can be part of the grieving process. I thought to myself: "Yeah… as usual Pixar is going to emotionally wreck me." That brings me to the next segment of Elio I got to see, which is the first time the boy makes contact with aliens. As the filmmakers filled in the gaps to us about, after Elio has a near-spiritual experience at the space museum, he starts getting super into the subject, and makes every effort to his ability to be abducted by extra terrestrials. When I asked the directors what alien media they think Elio has consumed the next day during our exclusive interviews, co-director Madeline Sharafian said this: He's such an alien fanatic. I'm convinced he watched all the classics. He's definitely watched E.T. a cajillion times, Close Encounters – maybe even more so because that's the movie where spoilers, the main character gets to go to space at the end of the movie. I didn't get to see how Elio is able to meet aliens, only that he is successful in his mission and ends up at a place called the Communiverse, which is really visually beautiful, and really sold me on checking out Elio in theaters rather than with my Disney+ subscription first. What I was surprised about is how Elio isn't abducted by one species but this floating environment that is full of leaders from across the universe that come together to exchange ideas. They are looking for more interesting minds when they come across Elio, but there's one funny miscommunication in play – they think he's the leader of Earth, which he is definitely not. When I realized that Elio was going to fake being the leader of Earth in order to keep his wish to be abducted fulfilled, I only got more excited for the movie. Then in the third clip, I was introduced to a cute little alien named Glordon, who is the son of a threatening alien leader named Lord Grigon. (You've probably seen him in the trailer, but the filmmakers told me they were inspired by puppies, an axolotl and a silk worm when making the cute character sans eyes). Anyway, I watched a scene where Elio and Glordon start to become friends as they wander all over the Communiverse together. During a heartfelt conversation they have with each other, Elio admits that he feels like the only people who 'wanted' him are gone (his parents), before Glordon quips that he seems 'fine' to him. This scene really hit for me, because it helped me realize further that Elio is going to explore belonging and isolation through its hero entering a new world away from his own. This cute little kid thinks a world outside his own will make him feel more connected, but what happens when the Pixar movie explores this further? I love when the animation studio uses its gorgeous animation team to delve into deep subjects. While kids in the audience might be bopping along to its surface plotline, me and the other adults in the room are going to be emotional over the relatable feeling like no one understands you, because let's be honest, we've all felt this way before. The final section of the footage we watched seemed to be later in the film where we learn the Communiverse will make a clone of Elio at some point so Earth doesn't know he's left. I don't know how or why, but Elio ends up reuniting with Aunt Olga after getting FOMO over seeing her with his clone and missing his life on Earth. In an emotional scene, Elio thinks he hasn't been missed at all, but Olga tells him 'I missed everything about you.' It put the nail in the coffin for me. I need to see this movie, and cry all the tears. I think it's going to be a special movie that reminds us why connection is so important for us humans. I'm so curious about the gaps I missed and the "epic finale" they teased during the screening. We'll all get to see the full film when Elio hits theaters this June 20. I hope fans like me go out and support original movies like this, because the studio has announced a lot of sequels like Coco 2 after this one.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Why Does Elio Have An Eye Patch? I Asked The Pixar Animators, And I'm Living For Their Reasoning
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. When it comes to the 2025 movies coming out this summer, Pixar fans can look forward to a new original entry from the animation studio with the release of Elio. As we start counting down the days to see it in less than a month, we have to talk about what we learned about the feature that is following Inside Out 2's massive commercial success when we were invited to Emeryville, California, to get to know the project at the very place it was crafted. Specifically, we need to discuss Elio and his already trademark eyepatch. In Elio, we'll follow an 11-year-old boy who's gotten really into space and aliens following the untimely death of his parents. So much so, he actually longs to leave Earth and be abducted by them in hopes of living a less lonely existence. In the 20 minutes of footage I saw, I learned Elio has recently started living with his Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) on a military base when he makes contact with real aliens and gets his wish. If you look at the trailers closely, you may notice, like I did, that Elio has an eyepatch in some scenes and doesn't in other ones. So when I sat down with the animation supervisors, I asked them why that is. Here's what Jude Brownbill had to say: Well, you didn't get to see how he got his eye patch [in the footage], but he gets an eye patch. That's all we can say. It was a bit of a challenge 'cause we were like, does he have to spend the rest of the movie with his eye patch on? It does provide a very useful way of knowing that it's Elio. So it was really kind of like a handy identifier for him. And in the end, it wasn't causing too much trouble. It one less eye for us to animate. What's up with all the secrets about Elio's eyepatch? Brownbill, who was also the animation supervisor for Soul, shared that it was actually a nice little thing for her department because it was one less eye to animate, and it makes the character more unique. During our visit to Pixar, the studio showed us a chunk of the movie, but we saw pieces throughout the film rather than the first 20 minutes. That makes me think there's something pertinent they want to keep hush-hush until general audiences see the film. The first clip we watched was the very beginning of the movie, which churned out a lot of big emotions regarding Elio's state of mind and relationship with his aunt following his parents' death. Elio and Olga are both having lunch at a space museum, but Elio is crouched on the floor of the booth, isolating himself from the world. He then wanders off to an exhibit where he first gets exposed to his love of space travel and the stars. He lies down on the floor quietly in awe as projections float around the walls, and that's it. He's in love. In the later scenes, I saw where Elio is up in space and hanging out in something called the Communiverse, which is a massive floating community in space full of leaders from different species of aliens. He's got the eyepatch on, and I'm so intrigued. I bet it's something silly like him hitting his eye on something while he's abducted, but I guess we'll have to wait. Animation supervisor Travis Hathaway also said this about the topic in our interview: For a film about a kid who has kind of dreams of being a space captain pirate or whatever it's kind of really on theme. So, we were surprised at how well it was woven into the movie by the end, I should say. I do wonder how much Elio will be like my favorite pirate movies, including the very underrated Disney movie Treasure Planet. We'll have the mystery solved once the latest Pixar movie hits theaters on June 20. I hope it becomes one of the best Pixar movies, because I love the studio so much.
