STORYLINE: 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. (IMDb)

    In 1995 Pixar made cinema history with the release of Toy Story, the first ever animated feature to be animated by computers. A childhood version of myself was in awe and wonderment of the film.  In the years to come Pixar released features such as Brave (2012), Coco (2017), and Soul (2020) that held that awe and wonderment. Others such as The Good Dinosaur (2015) and Turning Red (2022) were fine and entertained me.  Of course there has been the odd dud from the juggernaut studio. Luca (2021) leads thats brigade. Now it’s summer of 2025 and Pixar has released its latest film, Elio.    

      Much like previous films in the Pixar canon the animation is top notch. The little details is where Pixar tends to shine with its animation. The alien  characters were creative in their design. Their designed to look good and sell toys.  

   Story wise Elio needed focus.  It seemed like the final presentation of the  story was cherry picked from different drafts of the script.  In telling the overall story I felt I was getting pulled on completely different directions. It was unnecessarily episodic, overlapping these episodes.  This created a lack of focus in the central story for me.

   Elio is a middle of the road Pixar feature for me.

   Until next time I will see you at the movies!