Wade and Ember walk through Element City. Photo courtesy of Disney/Pixar
June 10 (UPI) — Elemental, in theaters Friday, is a meaningful story with striking visuals. It’s not as subtle as Pixar’s best but it’s still worthwhile.
Element City is home to fire, water, earth and air people. Bernie (Ronnie Del Carmen) and Cinder Lumen (Shila Ommi) immigrate to a Fire City neighborhood where they raise their daughter, Ember (Leah Lewis). Bernie wants Ember to take over the family shop one day.
Customers tend to set off Ember’s temper, which expresses itself explosively. Despite Bernie’s attempts to teach her to control her temper, one day Ember accidentally explodes the pipes causing water man Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie) to pour into the shop.
Wade is a city inspector and notices multiple code violations, so Ember follows him into Element City to try to save the family store. Problems keep mounting and it will take the combined forces of all the elements to work them out.
A city of basic elements seems like a bit more of a reach than other hidden societies Pixar has tackled. Insects in A Bug’s Life and fish in Finding Nemo already exist together in non anthropomorphized forms.
Even bedroom cities of toys in Toy Story or monsters in Monsters, Inc. make sense as societies those creatures might form. Sure, Cars was even more of a stretch, but Element City seems to be reverse-engineered from the themes writers John Hoberg, Kat Likkel and Brenda Hsueh and director Peter Sohn wanted to address.
The story of immigrants building a community that resembles the home they left is obvious. Fire City is clearly inspired by India in its design, fonts for lettering, music and even spicy foods served there.
Pixar’s Turning Red actually used the human community that exists in Chinatown, but metaphorical representations are valid.
It’s a bit of a reach to shoehorn themes of racism into basic elements. Fire and water people are divided, in part based on legitimate fears at how one can literally extinguish or evaporate the other, but also due to irrational prejudices that have grown from those factors.
Disney handled the above metaphors more organically in their 2016 animated film Zootopia. The animal city visually addressed how a metropolis would have to adapt to animals of different sizes, and addressed racism between predator and prey animals.
Element City and its inhabitants certainly achieve a look unique to Pixar. The characters are adorable and they can use fire and water powers to interact with the environments. Even air people puff and earth people sprout flowers.
If the immigration and prejudice themes are a bit heavy-handed, Elemental is more subtle about two additional themes. Throughout her adventure, Ember learns that aggression makes people shut down defensively, but being sincere leads some to open up with you.
That is a lesson that many adults never learn, but it’s true that humbling oneself has a far greater chance of convincing someone to help than yelling or demanding. Wade teaches Ember that by example and by guiding her.
The other relevant theme is about being true to one’s heart. Through her adventure, Ember realizes that she wants more than taking over the family business, which is reasonable and also painful because she doesn’t want to be ungrateful to her parents.
Wade and Ember have a Romeo and Juliet relationship, though Wade’s family is far more inviting and supportive. There are practical hurdles to existing in each other’s worlds, as Ember assumes they can’t even touch because he’d douse her.
Wade is able to find compatibilities by thinking outside the box. That is another important lesson, that just because one can’t participate in an activity others take for granted doesn’t mean they can’t find other worthwhile ways to participate.
Disability is a more subtle background theme. Ember comments that Element City isn’t made for fire people, which sounds very much like addressing a lack of ADA compliance for people with disabilities. That part is more subtle than the film’s overt themes of immigration and racism.
All of this is wrapped up in an adventure through a unique environment with plenty of comic relief. Signage around Element City is full of puns, and the script mines some laughs out of Wade’s heightened sensitivity and Ember’s volatile personality.
Elemental entertains with unique visuals and an uplifting message. It could be subtler about the message but its heart is in the right place.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001 a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
An intriguing romantic relationship but also a series of issues in Ben and Suzanne: A Reunion in Four Parts
Shot in Sri Lanka, “Ben and Suzanne” is a film that unfolds on a number of levels, from a tour guide to the country to the exploration of a rather complicated relationship. It is Shaun Seneviratze’s feature debut and it was shot mostly with local non-actors.
Ben Santhanaraj travels to Sri Lanka in order to reunite with Suzanne Hopper, who works for a local NGO, after a long separation. However, although his plans were to see the country and have a good time with her, she is stuck with work, which comes up at any given time. As time passes, their relationship is being tested by both the fact and a number of other episodes, while the ego and individuality of both seems to place another set of burdens.
Allow me to start with the negative. There are two archetypes of Western people living in Asian countries, or even simply staying for a bit. The one is the ‘savior’ who probably works for a Western NGO and tries to help, considering their effort life-altering for the locals, in a most of the time rather big misconception. The second is the ‘tourist’ who just wants to have a good time inside the usual bubble tourists experience, retaining as many of the tendencies they keep in their country of living, frequently complaining about everything. These two rather annoying archetypes do not represent everyone of course, but are quite prevalent, and they are also exactly the personas of the two protagonists. Suzanne is the ‘savior’ and Ben is the ‘tourist’.
Expectedly, and considering they both consider their wants as above everything, they soon find themselves clashing, with each one, but particularly Ben actually flaunting the aforementioned to each other, in probably one of most entertaining and realistic aspects of the narrative. At the same time, though, and in a yet another annoying aspect of the movie, there is no indication why those two ever got together. They seem to have nothing in common, or ever had for that matter, maybe except from the fact that he likes to make her laugh by clowning and she is quite susceptible to it. Whether that is enough for a relationship does not sound like a question with a positive answer.
The above essentially makes the whole approach of the movie somewhat naive, particularly because it also includes an outsider’s epidermal view of the country, especially when one compares it with a similar film we watched recently, “Paradise” by Prasanna Vithanage, or any other local films for that matter.
There are, however, a number of things that do work for the film. For starters, the chemistry of the two protagonists is impressive, with Anastasia Olowin as Suzanne and Sathya Sridharan as Ben presenting the fact that they have known each other for some time and that they both have changed quite eloquently. Their rapport is quite entertaining to watch, particularly in the erotic scenes and the moments they have fun with each other. Their fights could have been handled a bit better, but overall, this aspect is one of the best of the movie.
The same applies to the cinematography, with the 1:1 ratio giving a very appealing retro essence to the movie, and the overall capturing of the country by Molly Scotti is occasionally impressive to watch, despite the focus on realism. Joe Violette’s editing could have been a bit better in the succession of the scenes, but the overall pace is definitely fitting.
“Ben and Suzanne” has its merits, and the relationship in its center is appealing to watch. However, it frequently feels as a film that was supposed to be shot in the US, just found itself in Sri Lanka without being able to realize the difference or what to do with the fact.
It’s a silent nightmare in New York when monsters appear and ravage the world – but it’s an exciting ride when it’s back on the big screen.
White knuckle thrills abound in A Quiet Place: Day One, the new horror adventure from Paramount that’s infinitely stronger than a franchise spin-off movie has any business being.
That’s thanks to two luminous, dedicated talents: the first is writer and director Sarnoski, taking over from A Quiet Place franchise creator John Krasinski (who, in a funny contrast, made the family film IF this year instead), and the other is Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o as Sam, the woman on a quest for pizza and a happy memory.
Instead of following the main cast from the popular 2018 and 2021 films, Nyong’o leads a smaller scale quest looking at Sam, a dying cancer patient, who unluckily gets trapped in Manhattan on the titular “Day One” when the auditory alien monsters arrive and begin an apocalyptic takeover of Earth.
(For those unfamiliar: the monsters from the films are an unknown species of predators who eat humans, but they’re blind and can only detect prey if they make sound.)
Audiences saw a small taste of that day in the prologue for 2021’s Part II, but that was in a small, midwest town. But this time it’s the millions of people in New York all being threatened at once, and some of the chases and crowd-crashing scenes are scarily tight.
Sarnoski’s eye for terrorizing vignettes and setting up smart, scary obstacles for Sam throughout the city is endlessly creative and exciting. Crashed subways, abandoned buildings, power outages and some wild weather all pose scary, sound-like obstacles that’s more gripping than the last.
The real standout is Nyong’o, who almost never leaves the screen throughout the 90-minute film. Her conviction and fear are so palpable and engaging that audiences can’t help but get invested in Sam’s survival.
A premise of Sam wanting one last moment of peace before either the aliens or her cancer gets her may sound like too simple a premise. Under the careful nuance of Sarnoski’s direction, the team has made both a bright and bleak thriller that’s great summer entertainment.
What’s most compelling in the script are the moments when, despite the disaster, Sam (and her scene-stealing cat Frodo) is appreciating the small signs of life in the desolate city. Even though things literally couldn’t be worse, somehow Sam still has some small hope left.
Audiences will gasp and jump at this latest silent screamer, and if the quality control is this good, there will likely be more quiet places to find even after three movies. I’m certainly excited for what this world brings next.
Rated PG, 1 hour, 36 minutes. Horror Adventure Thriller.
Written and directed by Michael Sarnoski.
Starring Lupita Nyong’o, Jospeh Quinn, Alex Wolff, Djimon Hounsou and Frodo the cat.
Now Playing at Cineplex theatres.
With “Kalki 2898 AD,” Telugu cinema filmmaker Nag Ashwin rifles through a century of sci-fi and fantasy extravaganzas to create a wildly uneven mashup of everything from Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” to Marvel Comics movies, underpinned by elements from the Hindu epic poem “Mahabharata.” It’s billed, perhaps optimistically, as the first chapter of the Kalki Cinematic Universe franchise — which makes it part of a larger trend, since it launches the same weekend that Kevin Costner’s multi-film “Horizon” saga does in the U.S.
International viewers unfamiliar with the specifics of the ancient Kurukshetra War between the Kauravas and the Pandavas — think Hatfields and McCoys, only with chariots and spears — may want to brush up on Indian mythology before approaching “Kalki 2898 AD,” if only to make some sense of repeated references to that clash. Such foreknowledge could be especially useful during the CGI-amped opening scenes that illustrate how Lord Krishna cursed the warrior Ashwatthama to an eternal life as punishment for a grave misdeed, but allowed him a shot at redemption if he someday assisted in the birth of Kalki, the tenth and final avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu.
On the other hand, moviegoers throughout the world should have no trouble identifying (and in many cases appreciating) Ashwin’s numerous visual and narrative allusions to “Dune,” “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Star Wars,” “Black Panther,” “Blade Runner,” “Mad Max,” the Harry Potter movies and a dozen or so other pieces of intellectual property. Extended and unwieldy hunks of “Kalki 2898 AD” are devoted to world-building and character-introducing in parallel plotlines that take a long time to intersect. As a result, there are too many sluggishly paced stretches where the passing of time is keenly felt and the storyline is obscured by confusion. But the aggressively spectacular (and, again, CGI-intensified) action set-pieces are generously plentiful and undeniably thrilling, and the lead players are charismatic enough, or over-the-top villainous enough, to seize and maintain interest. Will that be enough to justify two followup flicks? It’s hard to say from early box-office reports.
After the fateful encounter on the centuries-earlier Kurukshetra War battlefield, “Kalki 2898 AD” fast-forwards a few thousand years to Kasi, a familiar looking but impressively detailed dystopian slum described variously as the first and the last viable city on Earth. High above the huddled masses, there is the Complex, a humongous inverted pyramid where, not unlike the elites in “Metropolis,” an Emperor Palpatine lookalike ruler named Supreme Yaskin (Kamal Haasan) and other members of the in crowd savor an abundance of luxuries — including, no joke, their very own ocean — while served by manual laborers recruited from below.
Bhairava (Telugu superstar Prabhas), a roguish bounty hunter who rolls in a tricked-out faux Batmobile equipped with a robotic co-pilot, yearns to earn enough “credits” to buy his way into the Complex, where he can crash the best parties, ride horses through open fields and avoid all the debt collectors hounding him in Kasi. He seizes on the opportunity to make his dreams come true when a colossal reward is posted for the capture of SUM-80 (Deepika Padukone), an escapee from the Complex’s Project K lab, where pregnant women are routinely incinerated after being drained of fluids that can ensure Yaskin’s longevity.
While on the run through a desert wasteland, en route to the rebel enclave known as Shambala, SUM-80 is renamed Sumati by newfound allies and, more important, protected by the now-ancient Ashwatthama (Amitabh Bachchan), who has evolved into an 8-foot-tall sage with superhuman strength, kinda-sorta like Obi-Wan Kenobi on steroids, and a sharp eye for any woman who might qualify as the Mother, the long-prophesized parent of — yes, you guessed it — Kalki.
Bhairava and his droid sidekick Bujji (voiced by Shambala Keerthy Suresh) follow in hot pursuit, and are in turn pursued by an army of storm troopers led by Commander Manas (Saswata Chatterjee), a cherubic-faced Yaskin factotum who always seems to be trying a shade too hard to exude intimidating, butch-level authority. Ashwatthama swats away the storm troopers and their flying vehicles like so many bothersome flies, and exerts only slightly more effort by warding off Bhairava and his high-tech weaponry. (Shoes that enable you to fly do qualify as weaponry, right?)
For his own part, Bhairava has a few magical powers of his own, though it’s never entirely clear what he can or cannot do with them. After a while, it’s tempting to simply assume that, in any given scene, the bounty hunter can do whatever the script requires him to do.
But never mind: He and Ashwatthama do their respective things excitingly well during the marathon of mortal combat that ensues when just about everybody (including Manas and his heavily armed goons) get ready to rumble in Shambala for the climactic clash.
All of which may make “Kalki 2898 AD” sound a great deal more coherent than it actually is. Truth to tell, this is a movie that can easily lead you at some point to just throw up your hands and go with the flow. Or enjoy the rollercoaster ride. And if this really is, as reported, the most expensive motion picture ever produced in India, at least it looks like every penny and more is right there up on the screen.
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