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The animated movie Elemental was released in theaters on June 16, 2023, nearly 11 days following its premiere at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on May 27. According to Comicbook.com, early reactions to the film following its premiere in Cannes were generally positive.
However, Metacritic reported that after watching the animated feature at Cannes, several film critics found it to be underwhelming. Some even went on to call it one of Pixar and Disney's worst animated releases to date. At the time of writing, Elemental has a 75% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an audience score of 92%.
According to Variety, Elemental was pitched by Pixar to earn somewhere between $35-$40 million on opening weekend. However, the film ultimately earned below expectations when it grossed $33.3 million, just below the expected range it was supposed to make at the box office.
That being said, the one thing that fans are wondering is whether the film is available on Disney+ following its theatrical release. The answer, however, is no, the latest Pixar animated film isn't available on Disney+ yet and is currently exclusively playing in movie theaters. However, fans don't need to wait too long as the Pixar film by Peter Sohn is scheduled to drop on the streaming platform on July 8, 2023.
The plot, cast, and staff of Elemental
As far as the narrative of Elemental is concerned, it is set in a land called Element City where inhabitants made out of elements like fire, water, land, and air co-exist.
The central plot of the film revolves around a love story between a fire-element female firefighter Ember Lumen and Wade Ripple, a water-element male inspector. While Ember is a tough woman with a fiery temper and Wade has a go-by-the-flow mantra for everything he chooses to do or does in life. The meeting between the two takes place when the latter is summoned to Ember's father's convenience store to fix a plumbing problem.
The official synopsis for Elemental as per Pixar's official website reads:
"Set in Element City, where Fire-, Water-, Earth- and Air-residents live together, Elemental 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."
The principal cast of the film is The Half of It's Leah Lewis voicing Ember and Netflix's Archive 81 star Mamoudou Athie voicing Wade. They are joined by a supporting cast that includes:
- Ronnie Del Carmen as Bernie Lumen
- Wendie McLendon Covey as Gale Cumulus
- Catherine O'Hara as Brook Ripple
- Mason Wertheimer as Clod
- Ronobir Lahiri as Harold
- Wilma Bonet as Flarrietta
- Joe Pera as Fern Grouchwood
- Matt Yang King as Alan Ripple, Lutz, and Earth Pruner
- Jeff LaPensse as Sparkler Customer
- Ben Morris as Wood Immigration Official
- Jonathan Adams as Flarry
- Alex Kapp as Customer, Delivery Person, and Earth Landlord
Additionally, voice actor Ava Kai Hauser makes history in Pixar animation by playing the first non-binary character to ever appear in their productions. Hauser plays Lake Ripple, who is Wade and Alan's youngest sibling. Other voices in the film include Dylan Buccieri, Jessica DiCicco, Terri Douglas, Austin Madison, Scott Menville, Fred Tatasciore, and Kari Wahlgren.
As for the crew members, the film is directed by Peter Sohn, who is best known for his work on Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, and The Good Dinosaur. He is joined by Denise Ream, who produces the film and had previously collaborated with Sohn on The Good Dinosaur.
The story of Elemental was co-written by Sohn, John Hoberg, Kat Likkel, and Brenda Hsueh. Thomas Newman of WALL-E and 1917 scores the background music of the film.
The various controversies plaguing Elemental
The Elemental movie has been mired in controversy ever since it was first announced up until the time it was released. According to Inside the Magic outlet, one of the controversies surrounding the film was its lack of marketing and promotion since its announcement and date of release.
As per Inside the Magic, Pixar tried to rectify its mistake of not putting effort into marketing. However, the company seemed to have made an ill-timed mistake via a tweet, which mentioned: "Unleash your wildfire." It was criticized as it was tweeted around the time that there were wildfires in Canada and North-east United States.
Pixar then deleted the tweet, but not before the fans took screenshots and then pounced on the animation studio for the ill-timed tweet. One user @kirawontmiss took to Twitter, putting up the above-pictured screenshots and another said that it was probably the "worst time to post the tweet."
Another fan @so_torious accused Pixar of the ill-timed Elemental-related tweet and claimed that the company had put up the tweet on purpose as it as topical
Yet another controversy plaguing the film is a recently released clip of it that eschewed an allegory of racism. In the clip, Clod a younger character tries asking out Ember for a date only to be rejected for it. Ember then reasons that she rejected him because "elements don't mix", instead of telling Clod that their age difference was the reason for her rejection.
Fans took notice of this and pounced on the clip, making a mockery out of it and criticizing Pixar for what they perceived as an allegory of racism.
Another controversy plaguing the film, according to Inside the Magic, was when some fans also took notice of Elemental's premise and compared it to 2016's Zootopia. They criticized Pixar for their tried and tested copy-paste style of storytelling as they claimed that the new film was only retelling Zootopia's story about anthropomorphic characters overcoming prejudice.
They also noted the similarity between Zootopia's Zootopia City and Element City's designs and criticized that aspect of the film as well.
As the film has just been released, it remains to be seen whether or not the overall box office collection will be affected by the mixed to negative critical reception.
Elemental is currently exclusively playing in theaters but will be released on Disney+ on July 8, 2023.
