When shipwrecked lands on a lonely island, then it is one of the first survival measures to paint as large as possible in the sand on the beach. In this way, passing planes are to be made aware of the emergency. The seven -year -old Elio Solis (original voice: Yonas Kibreab) has felt since the death of his parents, as if he was also stranded – but not on an island, but on earth. So he lies down to the beach every day in his self-made space suit, including the pasta test. Around him, he draws the request to flying spaceships to take him into space …
Already the scenario of the new original Pixar-original “Elio“Is heartbreaking-a word game with the English term” alienation “, which means” alienation “, but carries” alien “, and thus wonderfully combines the space plot and the coming-of-age core. All of this has developed “Coco” director Adrian Molina, who also found his own world away from home as a teenager, just not in space, but at the art college in California. After a few delays – through the author strike and adjustments to the story (Elios mother became his aunt) – Molina retired from the well -advanced process to staged “Coco 2” instead.
Despite the change of creative change from a single source
Instead, the remaining work on “Elio” has done “red” director Domee Shi and the storyboard artist Madeline Sharafian-and honestly: to judge the result, unlike “Merida”, where, despite all the qualities, you would never suspect that there was not a uniform vision here from the start to the end. There are actually only cuts because there is already a lot of plot in the narrow 97 minutes and “Elio” is still missing the room in order to get to know the human secondary characters and, above all, the different aliens a little better.
Elio wants nothing more than being kidnapped by Aliens!
Elio, who has grown up as an orbital analyst for space, Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) since the death of his parents, is actually not kidnapped because of his beach message, but due to a serious confusion: the members of the Communiverse (including Matthias Schweighöfer), an interplanetary organization that may best be described as Alien-Un Let Elio wrongly consider the leader of the earth – and only for this reason have brought him into their middle.
However, Elio has to prove itself for the final admission – and the chance is added when the war -hungry Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett) threatens to wipe out the communevers. Elio voluntarily reports to take the negotiations with the Warlord worm, but will eventually reach its limits. After all, he is and remains – confused or not – just seven years old boy …
Damn, is the clever
In the Communiverse there is a living manual for the universe (voice: bob Peterson): the meaning of life? What is on the other side of a black hole? But Elio would rather know who would win in a fight between a gorilla with baseball bats and ten chimpanzees? Even after a Solomonian answer that there would never be real winners in such a fight, and that one would prefer to strive for peace, Elio continues to be a “right” answer – and then also receives it in a wonderfully reluctant tone. “Elio” is full of such clever gags. Nothing tries or strained …
… And away from the Gorilla-Meme-Pointe, the makers also do without too forced meta humor, as he would offer himself in the sci-fi genre with all kinds of film quotes. Instead, “Elio” is completely reflected in the classic strengths of Pixar: As in “Toy Story”, every amusing detail, every surprising turn and every new figure pays directly on the coming-of-age experience of the protagonist, which is characterized by grief and loss, but also by the desire for adventure. There is always laughing loudly – and at least in my cinema performance there was almost no one who in the end did not at least eat one or the other tear (others were already handkerchiefs at the time).
In the Alien Glordon, Elio finally finds a real friend!
Speaking of my cinema screening: Apart from “Avatar 2”, it was-at least my memory-for the first time in years that Disney showed us a film in the 3D version in the press demonstration. But that was also his reason: especially the scenes in which Elio float in space alone are particularly spectacular in 3D-and the same applies to the best horror scene in a Pixar film since the first “Toy Story” (it is only very short).
The pixar animators look for a place in (almost) every film where they want to drive the technology. After the water and fire animations in “Elemental”, this time, this time, this is mainly the sequences in the community, where it is not only worked with many semi-transparent, luminescent surfaces. For the numerous different alien types, even different heavy forces work here to underline again credibly that each of them comes from their own, very different world.
Conclusion: a welcome return to classic pixar strengths. Even if there have been greater upheavals behind the scenes, “Elio” looks like a single source – for howling and the script is full to the brim with small and large clever ideas.