While it was pretty slim pickings for new flicks at the theater last weekend, I did drop in and catch “Elemental” on the big screen.
Now, as far as kid’s movies go, this one wasn’t too bad.
I rather enjoyed the unique ways the citizens of Element City traveled throughout the city and everyone’s unique elemental neighborhoods.
It’s a fairly entertaining computer-animated film and promotes truth, honesty, and healthy family dynamics and communication all the way around.
Elemental (subtitled Forces of Nature in some countries) is a computer-animated romantic comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
Directed by Peter Sohn and produced by Denise Ream, it was written by Sohn, John Hoberg, Kat Likkel, and Brenda Hsueh with Pete Docter serving as executive producer.
As the overall 27th feature film produced by the studio, it features the voices of Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Ronnie del Carmen, Shila Ommi, Wendi McLendon-Covey, and Catherine O’Hara.
The movie is rated PG for some peril, thematic elements, and brief language and is 109 minutes long.
Fire elements Bernie (Carmen) and Cinder (Ommi) Lumen immigrate to Element City, where they face xenophobia from other elements and struggle to find a home.
They have a daughter, Ember (Lewis), and eventually establish a convenience store called the Fireplace, setting up a Blue Flame that represents their heritage and traditions and attracting many fire element patrons over time.
Bernie intends to give the store to Ember when he retires, but first, she must control her fiery temper.
When Bernie allows Ember to run the shop on her own, she becomes overwhelmed by the customers and rushes to the basement.
Her fiery outburst breaks a water pipe, flooding the basement and summoning water elemental Wade Ripple (Athie) - a city inspector.
Wade notes the faulty plumbing at the shop and reluctantly leaves for City Hall to send the violation report to his air element boss Gale Cumulus (Covey), who will have the Fireplace shut down.
Ember pursues Wade but is too late to stop him from turning the report in to his superiors.
Taking pity on Ember, Wade brings her to Cyclone Stadium to convince Gale to reconsider the shutdown of her father’s store.
When Wade mentions he was investigating recurrent floods before ending up at the Fireplace, Gale gives the duo a tight deadline to find the source.
If they are able to seal the leak, then the violations will be forgiven.
While searching the canals for the source of the leak, Wade surmises that Ember’s temper derives from her trying to tell herself something that she is not ready to accept, but Ember denies this.
They then discover a hole in a dam that allows wave runoff from ships to flood the city’s plumbing, so they close the hole with sandbags.
Meanwhile, Bernie deals with water leaks all over the Fireplace.
Wade and Ember spend time together in the city and learn more about each other.
Like with all Pixar/Disney films, there’s more involved than just a few sandbags and getting to meet new people.
But, overall, it’s a family-friendly film with positive messages and something that’ll keep you cool during the hot summer days.
