We all know space is the final frontier. For 11-year-old Elio Solis (Yonas Kibreab), it's also the only frontier that matters. After his parents perished, Elio now lives with his aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña). An employee working for the U.S. military’s space program, Olga’s struggling to find her footing as a mother. While these two grow more distant with each other, Elio becomes increasingly enamored with the idea of aliens abducting him. Perhaps somebody in the cosmos will finally accept him.
One fateful night, Elio gets his wish. Extraterrestrials, responding to a record stored on the actual Voyager 2 satellite from the 70s, have come to Earth. Through accidental circumstances, Elio sent them a message leading these outer space entities to believe he’s Earth’s leader. After abducting this adolescent, Elio is a part of the Communiverse, which houses aliens from all over existence, such as mind-reader Questa (Jameela Jamil). Elio’s euphoria over his dreams coming true is short-lived once the nefarious alien Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett) begins his plot to destroy the Communiverse. Surely Earth’s “leader” can help out in such a tense situation.
The last time Pixar Animation Studios went to the cosmos (exempting 2022’s Lightyear) was 2008’s WALL-E, one of the greatest 2000s movies. Naturally, Elio is no WALL-E. That robot romance emphasized dialogue-free storytelling and shrewdly juxtaposing a dystopic future with homages to classic Hollywood musicals. Elio, meanwhile, is full of frantic dialogue and contains an Alf shout-out through the name of supporting character Gunther Melmac (Brett Gelman).
Elio’s shortcomings aren’t just apparent when it comes to comparing it to a lesbian cinema masterpiece. Screenwriters Julia Cho, Mark Hammer, Mike Jones begin Elio immediately putting the pedal to the metal on somberness. 2016’s Pete’s Dragon featured its titular lead having one moment of joy with his parents before they perished in a car crash. Fellow Pixar films Finding Nemo and Up had brief displays of joy before tragedy struck. Meanwhile, Elio starts right away with Olga struggling to parent the recently orphaned Elio at an observatory’s eating area.
Thus begins Elio’s wonky first act. This section of the story lingers on derivative sources of conflict (like the threat of Elio getting shipped off to boarding school). More urgently, though, it struggles juggling exposition about “something” contacting Earth while also establishing Elio and Olga’s strained relationship. Directors Domee Shi, Madeline Sharafian, and Adrian Molina do inject some nicely raw moments in portraying how these two people are basically living on different planets. However, more often, Elio’s overcrowded storytelling sensibilities kick its narrative off on the wrong foot.
Once aliens abduct Elio, though, Elio uncovers an entertaining, well-paced groove. Suddenly, things get weirder and that’s really where the proceedings thrive. Strange gags about women plucking strands of hair from tongues, alien supercomputers tossing snot around in the air like pizza dough, or organisms expressing nonchalant responses to losing fingers are rife with personality and humor. Bombastic baddie Lord Grigon (realized with gumption by Pixar regular Garrett) also makes for a more enjoyable adversary than earlier generic human bullies.
Shi, Molina, and Sharafian’s visual sensibilities also get so much more vivid and fun once the story shifts to outer space. On Earth, these filmmakers and cinematographers refuse to distance themselves from visual motifs in recent Pixar movies like Inside Out 2 and Lightyear like incessant use of shallow depth of field. Much like those 2020s titles from the Toy Story studio, Elio uses advanced computer-animation technology to realize humdrum Earthbound environments you could see just looking out your window. Realistic beach renderings just aren’t as impressive as, say, wringing tremendous pathos out of scrappily designed penguin veterans. Certain zanier human character designs, namely Gunther Melmac, are also begging to manifest in hand-drawn animation where they could realize their full stylized potential.
However, when Elio goes to space, the more heightened animation becomes downright gorgeous. The Communiverse is a vast, colorful domain that makes the City of a Thousand Planets look as detailed and expansive as a Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly level. Bubbly color schemes and a barrage of stylized aliens suddenly fill up the screen. Better yet, Elio’s creative team leans in on uber-theatrical visual tendencies for the space bound sequences. Lord Grigon, for instance, is introduced in close-up shots only lingering on fragments of his body. Here’s a figure so towering he can’t simply debut all at once in one wide shot.
Similarly striking visual choices proliferate as Elio gets in deeper over his head, including the amusing detail that Grigon’s spaceship prison looks ripped right out of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Even better than the glistening colorful animation in this section of Elio, though, is the introduction of Grigon’s son, Glordon (Remy Edgerly). Looking like a gigantic silkworm/grub with tons of sharp teeth and no eyes, Glordon is an instant scene-stealer. Both his kooky design (he’s adorable yet also kind of looks a villain you’d face in a Dark Souls or Bloodborne title if they ever went to space) and the way he just waddles everywhere are instantly endearing.
Edgerly’s voice acting, though, is also instrumental in making Glordon such a hoot. This includes this performer’s sharp comic timing. Hearing this critter say phrases like “political dissident” had me in stitches. More importantly, though, Edgerly lends believable humanity to such an out-of-this-world beast. When Glordon talks about his difficulties expressing himself to his father, it sounds and feels very real. Juxtaposing this multi-layered vocal performance with such a delightfully outlandish character design produces Elio’s most unforgettable figure. In many ways, Glordon is even more compelling than Elio himself.
While Elio’s initial foray into down-to-Earth poignancy felt a bit paint-by-numbers, these outer space shenanigans are terrifically fun. Cho, Jones, and Hammer's screenplay especially excels with a delightful montage sequence showing Elio and Glorbo getting into all kinds of shenanigans on the Communiverse (including the hysterical sight gags of Elio and Glorbo helping each other process vomiting). Even more enjoyable hang-out sequences like these would’ve been sublime since Elio’s third act sometimes gets too busy for its own good. The frustratingly overcrowded nature of this script once again becomes a problem.
Thankfully, this home stretch benefits mightily from deploying more of that cosmic weirdness, including an unexpectedly vivid and darkly humorous homage to The Thing’s body horror. Elio’s requisite climactic sentimentality is never unexpected, but it still works nicely. Those theatrical visual impulses informing early scenes of Elio discovering aliens come in handy for these closing bursts of poignancy. Nothing makes familiar emotional beats fresher like snazzy visual sensibilities. Happily, some of this material revolves around Olga not knowing what to do as an unexpected parent. So many animated movies (Finding Nemo, Chicken Little, How to Train Your Dragon, Sing, etc.) concern dads who are clueless about proper parenting. Olga represents a welcome departure from that norm as an effective portrayal of how not every woman instantly becomes mother-of-the-year when you put a kid in her car. Moms of all kinds are humans too, which Elio’s most touching moments deftly reinforce.
Elio leaves some serious potential on the table, particularly in its routine Earth-centric animation choices. Seven years after Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, it’s still weird to see Pixar refusing (save for 2022’s excellent Turning Red) to budge from its “realistic environments/stylized characters” animation impulses. Meanwhile, certain storytelling choices and especially Rob Simonsen’s score needed extra doses of boldness. The latter element particularly disappoints in the legacy of great Pixar film scores. One can only imagine what personality-drenched compositions Michael Giacchino or Tamar-kali could’ve delivered with this storyline.
Thankfully, though, after starting out so shakily, Elio quickly improves once it takes its protagonist and audiences to the cosmos. Out here in space, weird dark humor, off-beat character designs, and the endlessly endearing Glordon rule the day. That’s not enough to make Elio the next Ratatouille or up to par with either Shi or Molina’s last directorial efforts (Turning Red and Coco, respectively). Though it doesn’t “boldly go” where no animated family film “has gone before”, there’s still “space” (God, I’m clever) in the Pixar canon for a largely entertaining outer space ode to societal outcasts. Making room for a Talking Heads needle drop certainly doesn’t hurt, either.