'Elemental' is kinda bad (Review)

this video is brought to you by Squarespace the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online this last week I decided to see Elemental the latest from Pixar after light year one of the most disposable movies of last year I was kind of rooting for this one at least after seeing the trailer I was never excited about it but I was intrigued looked unique in the character design for the fire was interesting I've also been enjoying most of Pixar's recent films I really liked turning red thought Luca was great blah blah blah blah but I and I really didn't want to say this I did not like this movie hear me out Elemental is about a fire falling in love with the water I don't know how else to describe this so let's start with what Pixar does best the animation the timing is just horrible with the cross the spider verse dropping just weeks before this and setting the bar ridiculously high Pixar really had to bring it and the animation here is I mean it's still pretty good it certainly isn't spider-verse but nobody was really expecting that let's cut it some slack I really loved how real some of the water and glass stuff looked next to how abstract the characters were it was a unique contrast again the way they animated the fire was unexpected and interesting I'll talk a bit about the character design in a second but I can appreciate this unpredictable approach to doing fire I can also recognize that the technology behind having these characters moving all of the time is pretty impressive and that's cool yeah a good good job Pixar you did a good animation if this did anything better than most recent Pixar movies it's the World building this really feels like a full lived-in world you look at certain storefronts and you're like yeah I believe there's entire rooms and people inside these buildings which is a genuine accomplishment I can't think of a ton of Pixar films outside of this and Coco that succeed with making these cities that feel properly alive and lived in and one more thing the music man I don't know where the inspiration for this score came from but I am loving it bunch of Airy chopped vocals it felt very weird for a Pixar movie but it really worked and was the kind of music I'd listened to out and about in my free time I'm a big fan Thomas Newman continues to be really good at what he does more of this please but okay aside from the character design for the fire people I thought a lot of the films anime Nation lacked personality Wade the water guy and his entire family was super dull to me aside from using their water for gags nothing about the style ever proved that this was its own film working under its own language felt like just another Disney Pixar movie which is fine that if it's just another Disney Pixar movie it doesn't look bad it's never going to look bad but it does kind of feel like it's stuck in place it's not the kind of quality I've come to expect from Pixar you know Luca turning red Soul even if it was subtle these all had unique visual styles to them that kind of pushed the Studio's animation into a new Direction something we hadn't seen before this had some stuff but it never really got there for me it felt only a little bit more interesting than what they were doing in Strange World which is a not a nice thing to say I'll I'll admit the concept is unique the animation is impressive but most of the designs and presentation felt a bit rushed let's stop beating around the bush uh they're blobs they're just blobs and it's hard to feel emotionally attached to a blob at a certain point I personally just need a little bit more detail and a little bit more personality to feel interested in these characters usually Pixar's pretty good at making inanimate objects It Feels So Lively but again they were just kind of dull they're just dull a bit of a nitpick incoming but those uh title cards are we serious here they were just like two second title cards saying several years later in white helvetica font over a black background I'm going to recreate it right now to show you just how lazy it looked I know this seems like a nitpick and it is in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really affect the movie of course but to me it's these smaller details that highlight the level of care that is being put into a project and for a studio that used to inspire me to be more creative that have a book about themselves called creativity Inc I'm just surprised is all that it seems like zero care went into details like this again that's all a bit nitpicky so let's just move on and talk about the story the story here is pretty simple and nothing we haven't seen before Girl Meets Boy but wants to stay loyal to her family it kinda has a rom-com thing about it which I can't really think of any other Pixar movies that have a rom-com thing about them also the relationship Ember had to her father did almost get a tear out of me that was pretty cute the romance itself I don't know goes back to the blob thing and not feeling very invested in these characters but I really didn't care for Wade their actions it just don't make sense a lot of the time Wade claiming to be such a nice guy but unwilling to cut her some slack and not write her up at the beginning immediately kind of an unlikable character and then later in the film literally two seconds after they Embrace and touch each other which is a big scene Ember has a flashback and starts thinking about her family business he says I'm so lucky and it reminds her of her dad saying I'm so lucky and for whatever reason she turns on Wade immediately and they get in this big fight and Wade spells out the message of the scene for us and is like maybe you are just afraid but first of all is really lazy dialogue and second I'm sitting here like if you really loved this guy wouldn't everything outside of this moment not matter at all to you at least for a little bit I mean you're touching another element for the first time in your life for probably the first time in the history of this town and and you're thinking about your dad my point is that entire two minutes was just so poorly done in my opinion and it's supposed to be both the high point and the low point of the film even if this idea of taking your own family issues out on your loved one is a real true feeling this is a jarring and sort of unrealistic way of showing that and at least to me did little to make me believe in both the Romantic connection between the two or the troubled State Ember is in and it's just because it's rushed other than moments like that there's nothing offensively bad about the story here let's not get all red in the face or whatever about this another thing I like is the ending which don't worry I'm not gonna spoil it but they solve a certain thing in a really creative way it's very sweet and has that Pixar charm to it on paper it seems a little ridiculous but they pull it off in a way that again almost got a tear out of me the entire story of this is that this Fire Woman starts this controversial romance with a water guy and then she has to balance it with her deep rooted connection to her father who's a traditional fire guy two stories at the same time time type of deal and I think that's a good and fine idea totally harmless but they don't really do enough with either story to get it to a meaningful enough place Pixar knows that if they show a cute old guy even if he's just a flame I might start crying but it isn't enough to stick with me in any real way they get halfway there with both these stories and in the end I guess it works but but just settling for something that works isn't the Pixar way no we want something that that flies that that's uh that zooms which is why I feel bad dunking on this it isn't like offensively bad it's just awkward and rushed it's clearly two hours long but they had to cut it down and because of that you can sort of tell certain scenes aren't given enough room to breathe so in the end I just felt like I watched an unfinished throwaway parody of a Pixar film that tried hitting all the usual beats that we've come to expect from them and that felt frankly like a waste of time I mean the freaking promo for this thing was just other Pixar movies like what while it has some nice things about it Thomas Newman walks away innocent as a whole I really didn't like this movie it was super blame super awkward and a bit lazy for Pixar and at this rate I really hope we get something good pretty soon here okay also they did bring back the short film before the feature which made me super happy but it was a bad one it was like a Carl and Doug thing from up that was trying to milk the Ellie story again same score and everything and while it was a cute idea in theory it was a really Bland short film and I I was so disappointed geez this is a negative video to balance that out here's a recommendation if you somehow haven't already go watch across the spider verse but also past lives is in theaters and it is so far the best movie of the year so go check it out anyway Jesus Christ thanks for watching go watch Elemental inform your own opinion and before you head out I want to thank this week's sponsor Squarespace the best place to go to build a website and make that idea of yours happen they have a thing called fluid engine and Next Generation website design system that allows you to customize every design detail with reimagined drag and drop technology for desktop or mobile if you're like me and you're an aspiring filmmaker it's a really good idea to put together a portfolio and Squarespace has all the best tools to make it look amazing with their Video Collection feature you can host video content organize your video library and showcase your content on Beautiful video pages and sell access to your videos with member areas super helpful and to make the entire process just that much easier they have an asset Library where you can upload 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Channel: Karsten Runquist

Views: 223,386

Keywords: Elemental, Pixar, Animation, Disney, Animated, Movie, Film, Filmmaking, Frozen, Lightyear, Up, Cars, Marvel, Toy Story, Bad, Downfall, Review, Rant, Video Essay, Analysis, Explained, Ending, Clip, Edit, Analyzed, Why, Karsten Runquist, 2023, Spiderverse, Oscars, New, Films, Movies

Id: YGqn2MwgHLM

Length: 8min 59sec (539 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 20 2023