REVIEW: Elio (2025)

Movie Reviews

The marketing for Pixar’s Elio has been scant, to say the least, and a lot of such content tends to get pushed my way because of my interests and search history. So, I can only imagine the average moviegoer doesn’t know what it is. The last great Pixar movie, in my opinion, was 2017’s Coco, and the last one I really liked and would watch again was Soul (2020). Like many people, I grew up on Pixar. I really loved it, and I usually saw each release for my birthday (they tend to drop in June-ish). But like seemingly most things, Pixar has just been worse lately. I went into Elio with some hope; I’m glad it’s not a sequel or expansion of an existing Pixar property, and I’d really like to see a good movie right now. The ads I have seen did not look good, but I also don’t think they represent the film very well. That being said, Elio isn’t the film I would have hoped for, either. 

Elio Solis (Yonas Kibreab) is a little boy who lost his parents by unspecified means. He’s sent to live with his aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña), pushing her astronautical plans to the wayside. It’s an awkward fit, and Elio, believing his aunt doesn’t want him, plots to be abducted by aliens. Some roadblocks are thrust into his path, but he gets his wish and travels to a place called the Communiverse, where he meets various aliens. Desperate to stay, he reluctantly volunteers to negotiate with Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett), an imminent threat to the Communiverse. Things get complicated when Elio meets and befriends Grigon’s son Glordon (Remy Edgerly), adding another layer of conflict. 

Elio starts out really strong. I enjoyed the scene at the NASA exhibit where Elio discovers his love of space. However, this brings up a concern I have with the film. Elio is a space nut and wants to be abducted by aliens, and his aunt Olga wants to be an astronaut. Why establish both characters as having a common interest if this is never explored? The two don’t bond over their space fascination, and the fact that they both love the same thing is never even addressed. Accidents like this don’t normally happen in animated movies; they’re very expensive, and everything has to be created from the ground up. So it can’t be a coincidence that the lead and his guardian are both into astronomy. 

There are some decently famous people in Elio, like Zoe Saldaña, Brad Garrett, Jameela Jamil, and guest stars like Kate Mulgrew and Brendan Hunt. Kate Mulgrew, famous for playing Captain Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager, voices the narrator of the NASA exhibit that puts Elio’s mission into motion. Brendan Hunt, best known as Coach Beard on Ted Lasso, plays a fun side character who deserves more screen time. But aside from Saldaña and Garrett, none of these were noticeable until the end credits rolled. Normally, I would be inclined to argue that this is a good thing; I’m exhausted from stunt casting in animation. I enjoy it when B or C-listers are cast for their ability to convey the character instead of for a big marquee name. But I also didn’t think any of the voice acting was particularly good or special, and Jamil’s character, along with the other Ambassadors aboard the Communiverse, is totally forgettable. They add nothing to the story and have no meaningful characterization, exactly like the new heroes in Incredibles 2 and most of the main cast of Toy Story 4 (Jessie and Buzz got so screwed by that movie). 

I can’t really remember much of it now, but I liked the score by Rob Simonsen while watching Elio. It’s pretty and suits the movie, but you probably won’t be listening to it in your car. Elio has three directors: Adrian Molina, Madeline Sharafian, and Domee Shi. The film has nine writers in Julia Cho, Mark Hammer, Mike Jones, Adrian Molina, Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Julia Cho, Jesse Andrews, and Hannah Friedman. The film also has an army of producers: Alice Clendenen (associate producer), Lindsey Collins (executive producer), Aphton Corbin (associate executive producer), Pete Docter (executive producer), and Mary Alice Drumm (producer), although having numerous producers is normal in the industry. I mention this only because it makes a lot of sense if you’ve seen Elio. This film is extremely generic and lacking in soul and originality. The fact that a committee created it explains a lot to me. 

I’ve seen more than one headline calling Elio Pixar’s worst film ever. I don’t love this movie, and I fully expect to forget about it after the review, so I don’t know why I’m defending it, but stay with me here. Did you SEE Cars 2? Incredibles 2? Toy Story 4? “Worst” is very subjective, and even more so because we may mean different things. I can understand saying Elio is more boring than those films, but Pixar’s sequels are offensive (besides Toy Story 2 and, to a lesser extent, 3) because they forget or outright betray the messages and character development from the originals. Disney has had this problem for a minute now, but I genuinely never thought I’d have to say that about Pixar. Anyway, Elio is bland and forgettable, but I don’t think it’s bad so much as aggressively average and inoffensively bland. It reminds me a lot of that interview Pete Docter did last year about scaling back on Pixar originals and personal stories to focus on sequels and movies with “universal appeal.” I never thought that sounded good, and we’re already seeing the results of this shift in outlook. 

Overall, I enjoyed Elio well enough for what it is, but I can’t really recommend that you go out and pay theater prices to see it. There were only three people in my screening besides myself and my husband, only one of whom was a child. That’s a shame because this movie really is for kids, and I think they would get the most out of it. At Pixar, they just haven’t made a movie that had much to offer an adult audience since Soul. It’s sad, and I hope it doesn’t last, but I don’t have high hopes.

***

Get a META PC today; use code “199” to save on all purchases!

If you want to know what kind of political leanings movies have or just talk about cinema, check out the movie ratings community Criticless.

Get Your Geeks + Gamers “Uncle Idot” t-shirts to celebrate Flag Day and the 4th of July here! (Who is Idot?)