Thursday, June 19, 2025

Elio - Another Wonderful Work from Disney Pixar Studio with An Unconventional Setting but Still Provide Meaningful Story

As my wife and I would not be able to see any movies this weekend since we would be going out of town, we decided to watch this new film yesterday on its first day of release. It was very convenient for us as it played in the cinema walking distance from our home, so we could make it just nicely after I came back from work. OK, let's just get to it then.

Brief Story Line

Elio (Yonas Kibreab - Sweet Tooth TV series etc) was a young kid who had difficulty in fitting in and always felt lonely. Despite her effort, Elio's aunt Olga (Zoe Saldana - Avatar: The Way of WaterThe Adam Project etc) was unable to keep him really happy. After finding out about an expedition space ship to find life outside earth, Elio had been trying to make himself abducted by aliens so he could live with them. And somehow his dream came true and he was really taken by various aliens who lived in one location called Communiverse.

Elio met with ambassadors from various planets including Tegmen (Matthias Schweighöfer - Heart of StoneFamily Switch etc), Questa (Jameela Jamil - She-Hulk: Attorney At Law TV series etc) and others. Later Elio also befriended with scary looking alien Glordon (Remy Edgerly) who was just a kid. However the appearance of Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett - Big Shot TV series etc) was endangering the Communiverse.

So what would happen to Elio? And how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

As admirer of Disney Pixar's past works, my wife and I almost always saw their movies since a lot of them were high quality with lovely animation & wonderful story. And this one was having similar traits. The animation was really amazing as I told my wife that the persons movement & expressions of delight, worried, sad and everything looked so realistic as though we were looking at real people with actual emotions. However in term of story, though it has an interesting plot, I do think it's pretty deep and not sure if it's totally suitable for all ages as classified in Indonesia. It might be a bit too heavy for the very young children which explained the category of PG (Parental Guidance) in the US.

The main theme of the story was about a young boy who did not feel fit in anywhere and tried to find place where he could belong. It just so happen that he found in an unexpected world of aliens. The aliens forms were really unconventional which reminded me a bit of those in Star Wars films & series. I got to admit that the creativity of the film makers were pretty awesome as they looked weird but funny. Obviously the best part was the voice acting that made the characters fun. Our favorite voice was of Glordon who sounded like a very young adorable child (despite his scary looks). Oh aside from the names I mentioned above, there were also additional voice cast of Shirley Henderson (Dept Q. TV series etc) as the super computer called OOOOOO, Brendan Hunt (Ted Lasso TV series etc) as analyst for the US army Gunther Melmac, Dylan Gilmer (Young Dylan TV series etc) as Bryce and few others.

The movie surprisingly had short duration of only 98 minutes. And that was already including long closing credits which showed so many animation artists involved. Btw there was a brief mid end credit scene that was just for fun. The film was co-directed by Domee Shi & Madeline Sharafian, the director & story artist of Turning Red respectively with Adrian Molina also credited. From what I read, Molina was supposed to be the sole director but he was unable to finish it as he was assigned to direct Coco 2. But in any case, I thought this movie was in good hands as the quality was still good. If anything, the only part that I thought was not properly resolved was the fate of Olga in the end. 

Overall this was another good quality work from Disney Pixar studio. It might not be up to the level of greatness like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Inside Out and so on but it still has great entertainment value. Our hearts were still moved by the relationship between Elio and his aunt or Elio and his new found friend Glordon and we still got teary eyed from those touching moments. We were also pretty excited by the adventure and laughed a bit on several occasions. Critics seemed to view it favorably, though I am not sure yet about its box office performance since the movie will only have its wide release in the US on Friday. So if you are looking for family friendly movie with this kind of story, then I think you would enjoy this one like my wife and I did.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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