The new Pixar film Elio is about a young boy who has a vivid imagination and an obsession with extraterrestrial beings. He is mistakenly taken for the leader of Earth by an interplanetary organization. Reviewers find the animation visually good, but the story too thin.
Trouw – 3 stars
“Elio is a likeable film and an above-average animation, but will not become a modern classic. The story is ultimately too thin for that. In the best films, Pixar knows how to bring the momentum of a film, the energy you feel as a viewer, to great heights at just the right moment. Here, that energy seeps away a bit in the final act. This is partly due to the fact that Elio’s opponent is not convincing at that moment, but the story is also on the thin side.”
De Volkskrant – 3 stars
“With Elio, Pixar once again shows what surprising worlds they can conjure up on the screen. The ‘Communiverse’ is a feast for the eyes: the neon pastel colors pop, the design of the extraterrestrial inhabitants is quirky. It doesn’t get too sweet, directors Adrian Molina (co-director Coco), Madeline Sharafian, and Domee Shi (Turning Red) sometimes refer to scary sci-fi and horror classics, but it’s never scary for long. For example, one moment Elio is staring into the mouth of a drooling worm with five rows of teeth, and the next it turns into the over-enthusiastic, soft sidekick Glordon, who effortlessly steals the show. Impressive, for a creature that has no eyes.”
“Yet Elio does not have the emotional complexity and inventiveness of the best Pixar films, a problem that the studio has been struggling with more often in recent years. Elio has touching moments, but they are somewhat overshadowed by all the smooth adventures and the not always equally strong supporting characters. But still: just nice, such a cheerful, lovingly designed, and captivating space adventure.”
2:03
NRC – 4 stars
“Elio, like most Disney films, contains a simple message. This time about what ‘home’ is and how parents or guardians can love you, even if they don’t always fully understand you. It is the saccharine, but important emotional backbone of the film. In Elio, however, it is addressed so briefly and literally between all the spectacle that it never really registers with the viewer. What also doesn’t help is that the pain and desires of characters become somewhat overshadowed after a strong start. For example, the viewer does not know how, where, and why Elio lost his parents.”
“Could these lacunae and other loose ends be the result of the change of director halfway through production? The end result is that Elio feels like an impressive, but ultimately not entirely satisfying immersion in candy-colored cuteness.”