Elemental, not Elementals as I always want to call it is actually a pretty dang good movie. From the concept of the trailer alone I thought it would be a fascinating new way to essentially tell a romance movie and I'm happy to report it succeeds. Set in the metropolis of Elemental City a young girl named Ember is on the verge of inheriting her father's shop when a bit of a disaster strikes forcing her to come into contact with a city inspector named Wade as sparks fly and waves form. That's pretty much it, even though there was a bit of a setup for kind of a mystery when a floodgate breaks for unknown reasons that endangers the flame section of town, which I thought was gonna lead somewhere but never did. I feel that may have ended up on the cutting room floor, but hey they probably did it so it wouldn't be a reskin of Zootopia. Which...okay it's not overt but it kinda is Zootopia. The flame people are quite frankly discriminated against like Nick the fox, our main leads form an unlikely relationship, a large sprawling city split up in districts for each type or group, you can connect the dots. But don't let that deter you, they bring the originality in aces in so many other forms. I liked the animation style from the trailer, but being able to just drink in these visuals, the style, the abundance of colors goddamn it's another masterpiece of animation. I feel they were extremely deliberate in making a movie centered on elements, it pushes what a computer can do to amazing lengths on just how each element moves about, but the attention to detail in all aspects from characters to architecture is really quite special to behold. They wanted to show off and well done I say! The music is also truly special, I mean I absolutely adored the score and I can't even explain the influence or origin because I'm just not that much of an expert but it really worked for me! The relationship is actually really sweet but I feel ever so slightly bait and switched cause I infered that they would meet each other's respective parents so there's no horseshit liar revealed, 3rd act breakup, same old nonsense but it did. I did not like this. But the personalities of Ember and Wade are defined well and they are quite cute, it's honestly a breath of fresh air to see a guy have such unashamed and crystal clear acknowledgements of his emotions and opinions with no hint of hesitation which clashes well with her very pent up emotions and can't speak truthfully about what she thinks due to just her own personal inhibitions. I'm sure people will pathetically cry and obnoxiously bemoan the fact the movie goes "political" or "has an agenda" because well like I said the fire folk are heavily discriminated against and are potrayed as immigrants who live in their own private district, I mean it starts off as subtext but quickly becomes text but it never does the thing where every person in this city is a bigot except our main characters, far from it but some just hold more reservations to elements mixing. I had no problem with it and I think I would say it handles that material better than Zootopia, but I'm in the firm camp of it's not a problem unless you make it a problem. For what it's worth, it's a rock solid film and is worth seeing for sure if only just for the remarkable visuals. No joke, hand over my heart, for exactly one wonderful second I saw a shot just a simple shot of a motorbike and I said, that looks like real life. Cause it did. I'm...having a hard time believing I said such a thing but it's true, it blew me away. The future is now man. So thumbs up from me for sure, 3.5 stars, 8/10! Until next week everybody.
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