An average movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was produced by Pixar and since it was available on Disney+, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, unfortunately, it turned out to be another (still rare) disappointing feature from the all mighty Pixar, I’m afraid. Sure, it is always more satisfying when they come up with something original instead of another sequel/prequel/whatever but this one just didn’t work, at least, not for me. Like ‘Brave’ and ‘The Good Dinosaur’, it was one of the Pixar features which was plagued by some major issues during production (also the reason why 3 different directors were credited) and it was pretty obvious. It did start really strong though. Indeed, the main character had lost his parents which was obviously massively traumatic. Only Pixar would have the guts to start a family animated feature with something so heavy but, unfortunately, everything else felt slightly disjointed. Indeed, why did Elio want so bad to be abducted by aliens? Because he didn’t feel he could fit in anymore? It did feel like a stretch. I was also amazed that they didn’t do anything about the fact that, while he was obsessing about going into space to meet some aliens, his aunt was also obsessing about going to space as an astronaut. I thought they would feel a direct connection since they shared the same passion but this obvious link was left aside which was rather bewildering. Later on, there was also a major plot-hole about the fact that, while all these seemingly advanced alien species didn’t figure out that Elio was a kid right away, Elio was able to notice on the spot that Glordon was a child. Basically, in general and also in some details, the whole thing was rather half-baked but, at least, it did look amazing and I did like the friendship between Elio and Glordon. Anyway, to conclude, even such a failed feature like this one from Pixar was still fairly entertaining and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

6/10