Review: "Elio"

Elio is another successful animated hit from Disney/Pixar.  It’s sure to be one of this summer’s blockbuster kids’ films.

It’s the story of a young boy living with his young, active military aunt after losing his parents.  The loss of parents is an age-old theme tracing back to the earliest days of Disney animated films.  It’s pretty much a given.  Parents are going to die.  Blame it on “Uncle Walt.”

The loss is a crushing blow to Elio, a young space junkie, who just wants to be whisked away by aliens and taken to a place where he can start a new life and make some new friends.  He cleverly manages to beam his cry for help into deep space (no spoilers) where it is received. 

Help is soon on the way, but not before Elio has an altercation on a beach with some bullies who inflict a minor injury on Elio’s left eye, requiring him to wear a temporary blue protective patch.  He takes it in stride.

In a spectacular moment, Elio gets beamed up to a UFO and taken to a strange new world populated by strange, colorful creatures who think that he is the ruler of the earth.  Aliens often make this mistake as was seen in the sci-fi comedy classic Galaxy Quest (1999).  It’s a great story element.

Elio’s space adventure is an updated spinoff of Alice in Wonderland.  It’s the story of a child in a strange fantasy world trying to navigate an alternate reality.  There is even a talking caterpillar character (Glordon) who plays a major supporting role.  Glordon is the misunderstood child of a tyrannical leader who wants his son to follow in his footsteps. Part of Elio is about expectations, acceptance, and fighting for one’s own true identity.

As always, Pixar builds the story on a solid foundation.  There is a strong emotional core.  In this case, there are also some big questions, stated early-on, with the voice of the late science superstar Carl Sagan, who ponders our early attempts to reach out into the vast cosmos to determine whether or not we are alone in the universe.  It’s among the biggest of the big questions humanity can ponder. 

Among the earliest attempts to answer the question was the 1977 launch of the Voyager spacecraft which still soars beyond the boundaries of our solar system into the vast reaches of space.  Voyager and its recorded greetings are a part of Elio’s storyline.  Sci Fi buffs will recall that Voyager played a major role in Robert Wise’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture back in1979, postulating what might happen if an advanced race of machine-like beings intercepted Voyager and tried to return it to its creator. 

While there are some heavy ideas underlying Elio, the filmmakers keep things light, loose and fun.  Its main mission is to entertain an audience of younger moviegoers.

It’s interesting that Disney just recently released the live action remake of Lilo and Stitch which also told the story of a young child, the loss of parents, and a friendship bond with an otherworldly entity (Stitch).  The fate of the world also hung in the balance, as it does in Elio.  There is a strong thematic similarity, which is interesting when you consider the two movies were released almost back-to-back.

That’s not to say that one cancels the other one out.  They are both well worth seeing. 

Outer space has been a familiar and profitable setting for Hollywood movies over the years.  Our curiosity about what’s out there never ends. 

There is the fear that terrifying extraterrestrial invaders will destroy us, as depicted in movies like War of the Worlds (1952 and 2005) or Independence Day (1996).  There is hope they will be kindly emissaries who will help us solve our problems and bring about peace, as shown in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 and 2008).  We even imagine that they might be harmlessly hilarious misfits like the bungling aliens in Earth Girls are Easy (1988).

To paraphrase what Forrest Gump might say: “It’s like a box of chocolates—you just don’t know what you’re gonna get!”

In Elio and Lilo and Stitch, we see the lighter side of a Close Encounter of the Third Kind in which we discover things we never dreamed of and learn a lot about ourselves in the process.