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In a world where the elements, fire, earth, air, and water, live together, a young fire element, Ember (Leah Lewis), crosses paths with clumsy water element, Wade (Mamoudou Athie), and they, to their surprise, find that sometimes opposite elements attract. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TROL0pK-YYU

PLOT: In a world where the elements, fire, earth, air, and water live together, a young fire element, Ember (Leah Lewis), crosses paths with a clumsy water element, Wade (Mamoudou Athie) and the two, to their surprise, find that sometimes opposite elements attract.REVIEW: Pixar’s recent run of movies has been largely met with a shrug from fans. The studio’s films have had a difficult time getting back to the big screens after the pandemic. Turning Red was pretty good, but it only got a little attention due to becoming a Disney Plus exclusive, and their previous film, Luca, might be the most obscure film the studio’s ever produced.

Lightyear was supposed to be the company’s triumphant return to the big screen, but it felt like just another sci-fi/adventure movie.

Elemental aims to be different. It follows the classic Pixar style of focusing on emotion and character to tell a meaningful tale rather than pure spectacle. It also sports some of the most technically impressive animation we’ve seen in a while, with the team of animators doing a brilliant job animating fire and water in a way that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.Is

one of the best Pixar movies? I wouldn’t say that, but it will be remembered as one of Pixar’s most underrated films in the future. The film was intended to receive middling reviews from Cannes, but was too optimistic and sunny for a notoriously cynical crowd. It’s an animated romcom that is 90 minutes long and tells a sweet tale. It wants you to leave the cinema with a smile. It’s not genre-defining like the best Pixar movies from their insane early 2000s run, but it’s a sweet, gentle film.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JcIbyeODnMDirector Peter Sohn, who made The Good Dinosaur (and also stole scenes voicing Sox in Lightyear), does a great job creating a whole world for his characters in

Elemental. Fire is a relatively new element in Element City. The idea is that the city was founded by water. Air and earth followed shortly after. The movie is a metaphor of the immigrant experience. Ember, our heroine, wants to settle in Element City, despite her father’s wishes that she stay where fire dominates the city and take over The Fireplace. Most of Pixar’s best movies have been metaphorical in some ways, but like them, Elemental never gets too heavy-handed, and Sohn’s sunny optimism never wavers. Zootopia

, which is similar, confronted prejudice head-on, but that kind of thing doesn’t exist in Element City. Water and the other elements mean well.At its heart, Elemental is a rom-com, which, oddly enough, is a rare thing these days. Leah Lewis and Mamoudou Athie (who was great in the Netflix movie Uncorked) have good chemistry, and there’s a sweetness to their tentative romance that hasn’t been seen in a mainstream movie in too long. You almost forget that you’re watching animated characters as they feel alive. It’s a good movie, but not as good as their best. It’s sweet and entertaining in the same way Onward is, meaning it’s second-tier Pixar – below the classics like Wall-E and Up, but far above any of the Cars movies, Elio, Lightyear

, etc.Will that be enough to win viewers back to theatres? That remains to be seen, but for rock-solid family entertainment, or even a date night movie, Elemental is well worth a watch on the big screen, especially in its immersive 3D format, which, sadly, the press didn’t see – although I did see a chunk of it that way and it was a sight to behold. It gives the film more oomph that you won’t get on a small screen. As an aside I should also mention the movie comes with a short epilogue to Up, Carl’s Date