As it stands, the last truly great Pixar movie was 2015’s “Inside Out.” That film premiered out of competition at Cannes 68. Coincidentally, George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” also premiered OOC that year, which led many wondering why both films weren’t in competition.
Pixar had a streak of great films for around 10 or so years in the aughts and early 2010s — every movie they released was either very good or a flat-out masterpiece. They took the kind of major artistic risks that has been missing in their output these last 7 or 8 years .
Think of the radical, dialogue-free first act of “WALL-E,” the touching 10-minute life story of Carl and Ellie in “Up!”, the terrifying final few minutes in “Toy Story 3,” Nemo's mom dying in the opening minutes of “Finding Nemo,” and Bing Bong's “sacrifice” in “Inside Out”. All incredibly risky narrative decisions.
Nowadays we're seeing a lot more sequels and less of the transcendent moments that I've just mentioned. Sure, there's 2017’s wildly colorful and exuberant paean to Mexican culture, "Coco," but as much as I liked that film, and I really did, it resorted to conventional storytelling and lacked the risk-taking of the aforementioned classics. There were shades of brilliance in 2020’s “Soul,” an ambitious tackling of the meaning of life via the lens of a failed jazz musician.
These last few years, Pixar either releases disappointing sequels/spinoffs ("Incredibles 2,” “Finding Dory,” “Toy Story 4,” “Cars 3,” “Lightyear”) or slight narratives that don’t push the boundaries of animation (“Luca,” “Onward,” “The Good Dinosaur,” “Turning Red”).
I was reminded of this drought while watching the teaser for Pixar’s latest feature, this one titled “Elemental.” Which looks promising on paper, but still left me wondering if Pixar has lost a bit of its edge. Their dive into the business of sequels has watered down their brand. It’s fine, we all expected that to happen at some point. Here’s an official synopsis for “Elemental”, courtesy of Pixar:
The story introduces Ember, a tough, quick-witted and fiery young woman, whose friendship with a fun, sappy, go-with-the-flow guy named Wade challenges her beliefs about the world they live in.
“Elemental” is set to be Pixar’s 27th feature. It will be released in theaters on June 16th, 2023.