Ron’s Review

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This was actually quite fun. I don’t know why so few people talked about it. Elio is a very original Pixar movie, quite different from what we’ve come to expect from the animation industry, while still paying homage to the tropes that make children’s films a success.

Granted, Elio himself is super annoying and I’m at that age where I understand his aunt Olga better than I do Elio. But he’s got a great arc and ends up growing on the audience eventually.

I’m not a huge fan of the character designs. The exaggerated features are a bit much and not as cutesy as Pixar probably thinks. It’s particularly weird in contrast to the stellar (pun intended) animation in the rest of the film. The aliens are all so fascinatingly different from each other. The space shots are mesmerizing. And the details on the Voyager spacecraft are truly stunning. So why do the characters look like that?

But I got past that because the story was so fun, and very touching. I love the adventurous storyline—we need more adventure films for kids and adults. And there are some genuinely funny moments here. The ending is extremely sweet and made me teary.

I also love the very thoughtful cameo introducing the Voyager craft. Caught it immediately and was confirmed by the credits. As a Star Trek fan, I was very happy to see that voice cameo.

This was a fun little movie and I think it would have had a good chance at the Oscars. But this year belongs to the nigh-perfect K-pop Demon Hunters.

Mon’s Review

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I probably would have skipped this film had it not been for the Oscars. And I would have missed out on some spectacular animation. The landscapes and the cosmos were beautifully rendered here. Absolutely stunning to look at. In all honesty, I wish they’d made the characters more realistically proportioned, because all the backdrops looked tangible.

The story is predictable but sweet. I do wish these child characters weren’t so annoying though. It’s hard to root for Elio when he’s such a jerk to his own family, especially when they’re sacrificing so much for him. I get that it’s a realistic representation of how kids behave — they can be ungrateful and myopic — but it makes for annoying viewing.

The story is a celebration of uniqueness and difference. The narrative beats are very familiar, but it’s a nice story and told through gorgeous graphics.

I went in thinking I would hate this. I definitely didn’t!