This was so bad, my wife and I decided to leave after an hour watching it. Now, you could make an argument that this Pixar picture is for kids, but…with unlikable characters, weak voice work, and a slight (or should I say, watered down) Romeo & Juliet vibe mixed with a dash of derivativeness and social commentary…I think most kids won’t care for it, either. “Zootopia” tackled these things in a much better film that the entire family could enjoy.
At least with the short we got beforehand – Carl’s Date – a sequel to “Up”, we get to hear the late Ed Asner again, being worried about going on his first date since losing his wife. That was cute enough.
The story with “Elemental” has two flames from Fireland, and they face some discrimination in Element City. It’s tough to be fire when there are cloud people and folks made of water and vegetation, that have a nice city they don’t want burned down. Burnie (a great name, played by Ronnie del Carmen) wants to leave his shop to his daughter Ember (another cute name, voiced by Leah Lewis), but she’s a bit too much of a hothead. He wants her to be nicer to the angry customers. They sell coal nuggets and lighter fluid (which makes for great baby formula if your kid is a fire swallower). They seem to be doing a decent business.
The character names are fun. There’s Cinder, and one of the water people is named Wade.
So, do you think there will be some flames when a water person and fire person get together?
The relationship between various characters and in-laws feels forced, and it’s seldom funny.
One character named Crud, is growing underarm hair that are little flowers. It’s never cute when he plucks them and gives them to Ember. I just kept wondering what they smelled like. The whole picture felt like it needed a re-write, since the premise could have worked. It seems Pixar is slipping (although I liked “Onward” more than other critics did).
With Disney now owning Pixar, I can’t say that’s been a disaster. I loved “Inside Out”, and “Soul” and “Lightyear” were serviceable.
I can’t imagine any kids are going to want to buy toys of these characters (damn it, I’m thinking like a Disney marketing guy instead of a critic). The film was too shallow and is merely a flicker of a good story (if I were more of a critic, I’d surely come up with better fire and water puns than those).
This film lacks originality and is a big misFIRE (okay, I ended on a solid one).
0 stars.