Movie Review: Failure is “Elemental” in this PixarPic

Movie Review: Failure is “Elemental” in this PixarPic,Pixar is as entitled to a swing and a miss as any studio. But the lovely-looking miscalculation that is "Elemental" stands out on the CGI animation house's resume as a rare swing-and-almost-completely-miss. It's sentimental slop with a shiny, polished sheen. The film hangs on unlikable characters almost no one will connect with, dullish voice casting,…

Movie Review: Failure is “Elemental” in this PixarPic

Pixar is as entitled to a swing and a miss as any studio. But the lovely-looking miscalculation that is “Elemental” stands out on the CGI animation house’s resume as a rare swing-and-almost-completely-miss.

It’s sentimental slop with a shiny, polished sheen. The film hangs on unlikable characters almost no one will connect with, dullish voice casting, a mostly mirthless script and a squishy, pointless plot with a vague anti-prejudice/follow-your-heart/bliss messaging.

Aside from that…

Actually, there is more. Even the Pixar short, “Carl’s Date,” a can’t-miss jokey heart-tugger “Up” sequel with Carl (the late Ed Asner) accepting his first date since being widowed and getting advice from the dopy dog “Dug” with the canine-translator collar, has barely a laugh in it. It may be the most dispirited short I’ve ever seen from them.

“Elemental” is an immigrant story about two flames from Fireland who leave their storm-tossed home to face discrimination in Element City, where cloud people, waterfolk and earthy vegetation have built a utopia for themselves. But as fire is quenched by water and fire torches trees and such, foreign-speaking Burnie (Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi) have to set up shop in a ruined house in what comes to be called Fire Town.

They sell firebaby formula (lighter fluid), coal nuggets and other delicacies and fiery (lava) drinks to their “kind.”

Everybody else they mistrust, and the feeling is mutual as “the city isn’t made with Fire People in mind.” The elevated train is basically a boat in a canal, waterfalls are a favorite architectural feature and the most popular sport, Air Ball, involves cloud people puffing around a not-fire-friendly stadium.

Burnie dreams of passing his popular shop down to daughter Ember (Leah Lewis), who seems enthusiastic but is a literal hothead. She loses her temper with annoying customers, and her tantrums are firestorms.

Imagine her fury when one such hissy fit wrecks the ancient plumbing in their building, and weepy Waterperson code inspector Wade (Get it?) shows up to shut them down. Mamoudou Athie voices this lower-level bureaucrat, who dodges Ember’s efforts to waylay him on his way to file the paperwork.

Events conspire to throw them together to solve her problem, and his — the city has a potentially-catastrophic leak somewhere in the sytem. And thrown together, they must fall in love, even though simple contact could douse out her life and she could boil him into steam without really trying.

The “love will find a way” here, meeting the potential in-laws and the like (Catherine O’Hara voices Wade’s weepy mom) isn’t very funny and never quite overcomes the nonsensical premise in play. We don’t see much of a live connection, just a hint here and there. It’s the script that forces this issue, not anything organic about the relationship.

The “Get off your lazy ash” and “Make like a stream and flow away” jokes are rare and kind of gasp their way into a screenplay that was plainly lots of workshopping away from being anything Pixar should have ever put into production.

The “Go back to Fireland,” and “Never let them water us down” racial symbolism is more of a wince than a metaphorical wake-up call. The parent company beat them to that, didn’t they? Did no one at Pixar see “Zootopia?”

There are some lovely images and fanciful design elements. But the animated “element” characters are something of a bust, too. I can’t imagine kids wanting to take anybody here home as a plush toy.

Pixar used to have the independence and the luxury of honing their scripts until the pictures made from them had every chance to be an instant classic. In recent years, that process has been disrupted, the content treadmill has taken over and hit-or-miss sequels and shlock like “Onward” and miscalculations like “Elemental” and “Turning Red” get into production without proper vetting, workshopping or rewriting.

Let’s hope “Elemental” is a misstep that isn’t repeated, and while they’re at it, that we’ve seen the last “Cars” movie, too.