Pixar’s Elio (2025) arrives with a question baked in: what does a studio do after it has already reinvented the medium several times over. The answer for Pixar is to play it safe. The film is pleasant, occasionally funny, and handsomely mounted, yet it rarely feels like the kind of leap that once separated Pixar from Disney Animation. If you told me Elio, Luca, Soul, or Lightyear were all produced under the same house style, I would believe you. The studio’s trademark heart is here, but the sense of discovery is not.
Conceived by Adrian Molina and then handed off to Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian, Elio bears the fingerprints of multiple creative voices. You can feel the push and pull in its structure. Elio (voiced with wide-eyed sincerity by Yonas Kibreab) is accidentally identified as the leader of Earth and whisked to the Communiverse, a galactic council where rival species debate, posture, and search for common ground. Back home, a clone holds his place while his guardian, Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña), an Air Force major who shelved astronaut dreams to raise her nephew, tries to keep life steady. The movie toggles among coming-of-age comedy, interstellar diplomacy satire, and family melodrama, which gives Elio scope, but also leaves it feeling overstuffed and under-shaped.
There are glimmers of the sharper film hiding inside. The Communiverse is a fun sandbox, packed with oddball designs and quick-hit jokes about bureaucracy and soft-power politics. Elio’s insecurity around belonging, and his frustration with a life that has not followed a traditional blueprint, are resonant themes that Pixar has explored well before. When the movie slows down to let Elio listen, connect, and problem solve without a barrage of gags, it finds a gentle rhythm. Kibreab sells the kid’s scramble between bluff and bravery, and Saldaña grounds the home front with warmth.
The trouble is not concept, it is focus. Elio wants to be a star-hopping adventure and a therapy session and a franchise pilot. That mix could work with a cleaner spine, but too many threads compete for attention. The Communiverse’s peacekeeping plot introduces factions and rules, then moves on before the stakes can deepen. The earthbound clone gag is cute, then mostly sidelined. The core relationship between Elio and Olga carries the real charge, yet it often gives way to a Pixar greatest hits compilation about finding purpose and accepting who you are. These beats are not badly executed. They are simply familiar.
Visually, Elio is glossy and colorful, though rarely jaw-dropping. The character animation is warm and expressive, and the alien pageantry has charm, but the images seldom deliver the wow of a studio bent on solving new technical problems. That is where the broader Pixar conversation creeps in. Under Pete Docter, the studio’s focus has smartly widened to include more varied voices and storytellers. Turning Red and Elemental felt powered by that shift, with art directions and comic sensibilities that stood apart. Elio, despite earnest intentions, slides back toward the middle of the road.
It is impossible not to think about the production shuffle. Adrian Molina departing to concentrate on Coco 2, followed by Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian stepping in, explains the movie’s split personality. You can sense the version that wants to be a tighter mother figure and son story with a sci-fi wrapper. You can also sense the version that wants to plant seeds for a Pixar sized space mythos. The result is a film that entertains in the moment and evaporates a little after.
That does not make Elio a bad time. Families will find an approachable, PG friendly ride with a sweet center. The voice acting is likeable all around and the Communiverse critters will be merch magnets. If you have been hoping for the studio to reclaim the fearless ingenuity of Wall-E, Inside Out, or Coco, this is not that. It is another competent, mildly charming entry in a recent run where competence has become the default.
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Which leaves me somewhere in the middle. I see the movie that could have been, and I slightly enjoy the one that it is, even as it blends into the studio’s current house style. With Hoppers, Gatto, Toy Story 5, and Incredibles 3 on the horizon, here is hoping Pixar’s next slate finds a clearer spark.
Score: 5/10
Elio (2025)
- Cast: Yonas Kibreab, Remy Edgerly, Zoe Saldaña, Brad Garrett, Brandon Moon, Jameela Jamil
- Director: Domee Shi, Madeline Sharafian, Adrian Molina
- Genre: Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family, Science Fiction
- Runtime: 98 minutes
- Rated: PG
- Release Date: June 20, 2025
- Movies Like Elio: Orion and the Dark, Dog Man, Night of the Zoopocalypse, More Movies Like Elio
