Disney has a spending problem. I’ve said for years now that Disney has a lamentable habit of releasing movies deep into nine-figure budgets, which means the company will look bad and lose enough money to threaten the company’s future unless every single one of their tentpole films makes less than a billion dollars at the box office. We’ve known for some time now that this was a highly visible problem with regard to their live-action remakes, the MCU films, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc.
Even so, I was shocked to find out that this same overspending habit extends to their animated offerings as well.
Seriously, check the numbers for the last few films that Pixar made. Hell, look at the last few films that Disney Animation Studios made. Every single one of them was reportedly budgeted somewhere between $150 million and $200 million. And even when one of them — namely Inside Out 2 — crossed the billion-dollar mark, there were mass layoffs at Pixar in an effort to try and limit costs without compromising executive pay.
Because of course the insatiable greed of corporate execs is a factor here — as it is with literally every aspect of our modern world — but that’s a discussion for another time.
So here we are with Elio, a Pixar film that came in at a $150 million budget, after last-minute recastings, a revolving door of three different directors, and enough script rewrites to qualify writing credits for no less than six different writers. Given the lackluster promotional campaign and the aggressively bad buzz from the mainstream trades, it looks an awful lot like Disney didn’t know what they had with this one and they’ve been aggressively sandbagging it for tax refunds on the losses (see also: The Marvels).
Which is really a damn shame because somehow, in spite of everything, Elio is indeed a solidly good little movie.
(Side note: In case you’re wondering, there’s no animated short up front this time.)
Elio Solis (newcomer Yonas Kibreab, and yes, I triple-checked to make sure that’s not a typo) is a young boy who recently lost his parents. (The cause of death is never confirmed, but I’m pretty sure they died from being the parents to a protagonist in a Disney animated movie.) Thus Elio is now in the care of Olga (Zoe Saldana), an Air Force major who was aggressively pursuing a career as an astronaut until the aforementioned family tragedy put those ambitions on hold.
Our story begins when Elio goes on a trip to an aeronautics and space museum. (Shout-out to Kate Mulgrew, who makes a welcome cameo appearance as our museum narrator.) Elio becomes enchanted with the notion of extraterrestrial life, and makes it his all-consuming mission to get abducted by aliens so he doesn’t have to live on Earth anymore. To make a long and outlandishly contrived story short, Elio succeeds in getting a message out to real-life aliens, who obligingly come to pick up Elio.
Let’s pause for a moment and unpack what we’ve got so far.
On the one hand, Olga is a workaholic whose life and career were not built to accommodate a child. She’s a high-ranking Air Force officer with a highly important job helping satellites navigate orbital space that’s increasingly cluttered with debris. And while that’s going on, Olga is visibly torn between all the pressure to chase after promotions and get her shot on a space flight, versus the pressures of trying to parent a kid who stubbornly refuses to accept her as a parent figure.
Elio lost his parents. He lost a mom and dad who not only loved him unconditionally, but understood his quirks and eccentricities like nobody else ever did. Without them, he has no friends, he’s a bully target, he’s living in someone else’s home, and he’s stuck with an aunt who doesn’t have any time for him.
It’s a shitty situation to be in, certainly. But there’s something that Elio is too young and grief-stricken to understand: He’s not making the shitty situation any better for anyone. In fact, Elio would rather check out completely and put all his time and effort into getting abducted by aliens — who don’t actually exist, as far as anyone knows — instead of putting that same time and effort into trying to get help and solve his problems here on Earth.
The movie is heavily focused on the concept of whether humans are alone in the universe. But what’s truly ingenious is in how the movie explores that huge and epic concept in the context of a smaller and more intimate premise of a boy who feels alone on Earth. Indeed, Elio is so focused on what could potentially be out there in space that he actively rejects and ignores everything — for better and for worse — that he actually has on Earth. More to the point, it’s an impressive feat of willfully blind hypocrisy how Elio utilizes help and research from other like-minded individuals, only to brush them off completely and focus on his problems so he can go on feeling sorry for himself and keep pretending he doesn’t have a place or people on Earth.
Of course all of this kicks into a higher gear when Elio is inducted as a probationary ambassador to the Communiverse, where all the greatest thinkers and leaders of the most advanced species come to exchange knowledge and ideas across the stars. Problems become immediately apparent when Elio has to lie about being the leader of Earth so he can maintain his standing. What’s worse, the other ambassadors were under the assumption that Earth’s ambassador would have altruistic intentions in joining the other species across the cosmos — this job wasn’t built for someone like Elio, who only wants to be an ambassador for his own selfish intentions of abandoning Earth completely.
Most importantly, we eventually learn that all of these ambassadors are spineless cowards. This ultimate collection of the most brilliant minds in all the galaxy, and it’s explicitly stated that they turn tail and run away literally every single time they’re met with some existential threat or violent enemy. The parallels to Elio are obvious.
Which brings us to our antagonist. Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett) is a tyrannical warlord who seeks admission into the Communiverse for the clear and explicit goal of pushing around every other species in the universe. As the plot unfolds, it becomes clear that for Grigon and his species, strength is an end in itself. This entire culture goes to absurd lengths in denying and concealing any sign of vulnerability or weakness, purely because of established norms and traditions. Put simply, they are bullies. Again, the parallels to Elio and his own situation back home are obvious.
Then we’ve got Grigon’s son (Glordon, voiced by Remy Edgerly). Here we have a runt who’s been written off as a disappointment by his overbearing father. In point of fact, Glordon doesn’t actually want to be a tyrannical warlord like his father, but he’s too afraid of his dad to say as much. Thus, not only does Glordon provide Elio with a much-needed friend, but once again, we’re given obvious parallels between Elio and his own strained relationship with his aunt.
Folks, there’s no getting around it: This plot is laughably contrived. I get that this is a high-flying work of science fantasy, the filmmakers were free to invent whatever the hell they wanted or needed, but they come within a hair’s breadth of abusing that privilege. It’s pitifully absurd how all of these characters in this entire scenario were so painstakingly tailored to fit the uniquely specific case of Elio and his current situation. Likewise, it’s shamelessly transparent how labyrinthine plotting, improbable coincidences, arbitrary sci-fi rules, and straight-up deus ex machina bullshit all provide Elio with exactly what he needs at the exact time when he needs it.
That said, at least the world-building here isn’t terrible. There’s a consistent sense of internal logic, such that even the most transparent plot device makes some degree of sense. And of course it helps that the filmmakers put so much effort into designing this movie. The front half of the movie was made with such slavish devotion to the USAF and NASA, it reflects well on all the made-up stuff when we get there. I might further add that some contrivances lead to genuinely clever setups/payoffs, which goes a long way.
Far more importantly, this is all in service of the themes. This movie casts an impressively wide net in terms of positive messages, and they all work beautifully together. Themes of working through trauma, finding friends, standing up to bullies, the list goes on and on. Some of these themes are more developed than others, but they all thrive in beautiful symbiosis with the overall message that being unique isn’t the same as being alone. And if the movie didn’t take so many arbitrary and implausible measures, I don’t know that it could’ve covered so much ground and done it so well within 100 minutes.
And anyway, this is a children’s escapist fantasy about getting whisked away to a magical world of friendly colorful aliens. The bar for suspending disbelief has been set generously high off the jump.
On a final note, I said it regarding Moana 2 and I’ll say it again here: The Disney/Pixar house style looks too much like AI Slop. Yes, I know that’s got everything to do with AI algorithms and nothing to do with these filmmakers. Yes, it’s significantly less of a problem in a movie where most of the characters are distinctly non-humanoid aliens. Even so, the fact remains that Disney/Pixar animated films have looked so much alike for so long that soulless AI swill-churners have adopted this particular style as the universal standard. We’re long past due for some degree of creativity or innovation with regards to the design and movement of human characters within Disney/Pixar animated films.
Overall, I’d say that Elio deserves far better than it’s gotten. In terms of heartfelt themes and spectacular action with vibrant science fantasy, the film accomplishes what it set out to do. Though the plot gets woefully thin at times, the film makes up for that with intelligence, sincerity, and good clean fun.
It’s a damn shame we’re never getting a sequel to this, because I’d be genuinely interested to see what happens next for Elio and what else is waiting out there in this setting. (Though given Disney/Pixar’s recent history, they’d probably find some way to screw it up.) Regardless, I’d definitely recommend giving this a shot. And that should come as high praise for a kids’ movie, while How to Train Your Dragon (2025) is still running — they’re both great.