First Take: Elio - Pixar start to get creative once again

SYNOPSIS: Elio, a space fanatic with an active imagination, finds himself on a cosmic misadventure where he must form new bonds with alien lifeforms, navigate a crisis of intergalactic proportions and somehow discover who he is truly meant to be.

On last year’s Marathon Day we had Inside Out 2 as the big headliner, and for a second year in a row we have a new Pixar movie to get in to… but this time it is an original IP for a change. Following sweeping changes at Emeryville, and a new creative structure, you can tell the studio want to rekindle their glory days.

Domee Shi, Madeline Sharafian and Adrian Molina (who left production midway through to focus on the sequel to Coco) are the trio tasked with turning in this film, and in 1 hour 38 minutes they tackle a LOT, from clear nods to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, to the usual family friendly themes you’d expect from a Pixar film. It does take a while to find its voice, but when it hits the final act it feels very much like the Pixar of old, hitting the textbook 12 stage ‘heroes journey’ structure with a script from Mark Hammer, Julia Cho and Mike Jones, and visually, this is another strong effort from the teams at Emeryville. If you are watching on one of those fancy new laser projectors, it’s gonna really look at home on the big screen, especially with Pixar newbie Rob Simonsen providing a score that genuinely feels like it was developed in tandem with the production, rather than being added afterwards.

With the voice cast, it is a mix of heavyweights and new talents - Yonas Kibreab takes on the voice of Elio, and the only major big name voice talent is Zoe Saldana in an attempt to shrink budgets down - beyond those two though, this is a good cast, with Brad Garrett, Remy Edgerly, Jameela Jamil (yes, Jameela from T4 and BBC Radio 1 back in the day), and a brilliantly thought out bit part for Star Trek legend Kate Mulgrew in the film’s opening being the standouts. It really feels like Pixar’s restructure last year, and the further involvement of Pete Docter in the studio’s output is starting to pay off, as everything from Elemental onwards has delivered the goods. Hopefully they can continue this form with next year’s films, and especially with the sequel that they hoped they wouldn’t make (having done the perfect ending in Toy Story 4).

THE VERDICT

Elio feels like the start of a definitive return to form when it comes to original movies from Pixar - with a rejuvenated studio team, a will to make films that resonate, and importantly films that make good, wholesome entertainment for the family. It might be marketed as a completely different film to what we actually got, but for the first time since 2015 I’ve come out of an original Pixar film thinking ‘yep, they actually thought about this one for a change’.

RATING: 4/5