The Simplicity of "Multiplicity"

I saw the poster for the Harold Ramis comedy "Multiplicity" so many times in 1996, but it was one of those movies that I just never crossed paths with.  It was a box office bomb, and never entered the rotation of syndicated movies that would play constantly on our local television channels on the weekends.  We all knew who Michael Keaton was, but he wasn't enough of a draw in the mid-90s to sway my family to rent one of his movies instead of the latest Robin Williams or Jim Carrey vehicle.  Still, "Multiplicity" seemed to be a movie that I would enjoy.  It had a goofy sci-fi premise.  It had Andie MacDowell, who I generally like, as the female lead.  So, this was definitely on that endless running list of movies that I meant to check out eventually, someday.

Well, someday turned out to be yesterday.  "Multiplicity" is currently available on Tubi, so I went ahead and took the plunge.  The movie is not very good, but it's fascinating to look at as an artifact of the '90s, so I gotta write about it.  Spoilers ahead.

There is very little that surprised me about "Multiplicity."  It fits very well in that vein of 90s comedy based on material taken from "National Lampoon," mining the base instincts and preoccupations of the Boomer male for comedy.  Doug Kinney is a sympathetic protagonist, at least at first.  He's an overworked construction foreman who never has enough hours in the day for his job, his family, and himself.  Through the magic of Harris Yulin in a lab coat, Doug gets his very own clone to help out - meaning a Xerox copy of himself with the same memories up to the point of cloning.  Then another clone.  Then another clone.  These clones are initially referred to by number - Two, Three, and Four - before getting their own names.  Two spends all his time working construction and comes across as very masculine and assertive.  Three does most of the domestic wrangling, has a lot of feminine behaviors, and is very gay coded.  Four, who was cloned from one of the other clones, and thus not as "sharp," is a walking dumbbell who is there for comic relief.  It's obvious why Michael Keaton signed on, because he gets to play four funny versions of the same guy.  Keaton does a decent job, but the writing really doesn't do him any favors.

Though one of the four credited writers is a woman, "Multiplicity" is a product of the male id.  Doug has let his life get so overbooked that he needs two other versions of himself working full time to get a break.  His wife Laura is a flimsily constructed creature who creates a lot of Doug's problems by going back to work, but this isn't a "Mr. Mom" scenario where the couple really feel like partners sharing their struggles.  All the extra work falls on Doug's shoulders and Laura is so preoccupied that she doesn't ever realize that there are three additional Dougs living out of the family shed to help pick up the slack.  Doug insists that the clones should never be intimate with her, as his unbreakable "Rule One," but she ends up sleeping with all three of them inadvertently.  To sidestep any difficult moral questions and emotional fallout, Laura just never finds out the truth.  She takes what she thinks are Doug's wild personality shifts and forgetfulness to be symptoms of a failing relationship, and temporarily leaves with the kids.  Doug, who by this time has been fired from his demanding job, and has learned that too much free time is bad, is able to win her back by finally fulfilling his promise to remodel the house.  He proves his devotion through manual labor and the promise of a job change.  Then, even though there's no sign that Doug's life will get any less busy, he sends the clones off to Florida together to start lives of their own.    

The obvious joke here is that Doug can't handle a situation that many working parents have been handling forever, even with all the extra hands.  However, that's not really fair, as Doug is never shown to be anything but a loving and well-meaning father, who tries to do the right thing with the wrong methods.  The bigger issue is that Doug being overworked is really just scaffolding for all the clone humor, and the movie never really takes his troubles all that seriously.  The scripting also shows a lack of imagination, barely exploring the consequences of having the clones around.  Nobody notices the grocery bill going up or the other extra expenses.  Laura never catches on about the clones, but neither do the kids or anybody else.  The cloning lab is so inconsequential that the clones may as well have been made by magic.  Even the sexual hijinks are pretty tame.  The moral implications are the only interesting part, which are skipped over entirely.   

Instead, a lot of "Multiplicity" hinges on the audience being impressed by the gimmick of multiple Michael Keatons onscreen at the same time.  The effects are very good - good enough that I forgot about them a lot of the time - except that the camera kept drawing attention to the double/triple/quadruple act in distracting ways.  The characterization of the clones also gets overly cartoonish in a hurry.  Two was initially interesting in that he lets Doug see what his life would have looked like if he'd stayed single and unattached, but this doesn't really go anywhere.  When all three clones are interacting, they come off as three completely different personalities - which is great for the comedy, but it all feels arbitrary and convenient, with no attempt to explain why each clone has such different traits.  Three in particular just comes across as bizarre, especially since the implication is that doing housework makes you more feminine.  

Am I overthinking a silly comedy?  Sure, but "Multiplicity" came out a few years after "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "The Nutty Professor" already covered much of the same material much more thoughtfully and successfully.  I can't think of anything that "Multiplicity" did that a dozen other movies of the same era did better.  Keaton's performances just end up reminding me of when he played similar characters in prior films.  Apparently there was quite a bit of improv in the "Multiplicity," and Keaton only had himself for a scene partner a lot of the time, which didn't help.  

I'm glad that I finally watched this, but I don't think I missed much by not having "Multiplicity" in my regular movie rotation growing up.  Keaton's made plenty of movies I like better.     

    

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"Nobody Wants This," Year Two

Joanne and Noah are back, for another season of "will they, won't they," as Joanne considers converting to Judaism for Noah, and Noah considers new career opportunities to be with Joanne.  They spend the season exploring more aspects of the Jewish faith, including episodes about naming ceremonies and Purim.  However, that's not enough to fill a whole ten episodes, so there's a lot of time spent with two other couples this year - Esther and Sasha, and Morgan and her new boyfriend, Dr. Andy (Arian Moayed).

"Nobody Wants This" feels more like a traditional sitcom than most of the comedies I've been watching, even though it's not a multi-camera show, and even though I've never seen another series be this candid about Jewish characters' struggles with their faith.  This season feels like many second seasons of shows that are hoping to be long-running series, especially in the way that it has narrowed down its conflicts to very simple, relationship-centric issues that can be repeated ad nauseum.  The Valentine's Day episode is all about Noah trying to create the most impressive Valentine's experience, while Joanne just wants something more personal.  Awkward culture clashes are repeatedly assuaged with cute affirmations of devotion.  The cast of regulars is also much more clearly defined - Joanne, Noah, Esther, Sasha, and Morgan are the main characters.  We still see plenty of Bina, but other formerly recurring characters like Miriam and the Head Rabbi are very scarce.

However, the leads are all strong, and each one of them can carry the show if necessary.  Now that Esther doesn't have to be the hostile future in-law, she's much more compelling as she considers having another child what it means for her happiness.  Morgan has the most dramatic arc, as is fitting for her dramatic personality, when she pairs up with a new man who seems to be perfect for her, but she might be rushing into things.  Then there's  Joanne and Noah, who discover that they don't know each other or themselves as well as they thought they did, as they keep hitting relationship snags.  The big one, of course, is that Joanne isn't sure about converting, and Noah doesn't want to rush her, but this does impact Noah's life negatively in various ways.  On the Jewish faith front, easily the most interesting subplot involves Noah becoming involved with the much more liberal Temple Ahava, run by Rabbi Neil (Seth Rogen), and discovering that he's more traditional than he realized.       

There are some good guest stars this year.  I want to point out Leighton Meester as Abby, an old friend of Joanne's, who is at the center of the season's funniest episode, where everyone is at a party trying to be on their best behavior.   Arian Moayed as Dr. Andy does a great job of riding the line between eccentric and concerning.  And  then there are Morgan and Joanne's parents, Lynn (Stephanie Faracy) and Henry (Micahel Hitchcock), who prove to be just as much of an aggravation to Joanne this year as the openly disapproving Bina.  They were both around last season, but this year lays the groundwork for the two of them to become much more involved, if "Nobody Wants This" decides to go in that direction.  

My only complaint with the show right now is that it's noticeably shifting gears to prepare for a longer run than I think it originally intended.  Ten episodes isn't a short season by modern standards, and it still feels like it went by too fast and didn't get enough done.  An awful lot of time is spent setting things up that aren't going to pay off for a long time, and very little gets resolved.  Issues that were pretty central in season one, like the fate of Joanne and Morgan's podcast, seem to have been completely backburnered in the second.  I expect that future seasons will address some of these things, but it's frustrating when Noah's employment worries are just ignored after a few episodes, and it feels like we've somehow skipped some important moments with Esther before her big decision in the finale.

Fortunately, a comedy like "Nobody Wants This" has a perfectly reasonable production timeline, and I don't expect it'll be too long before I get a few more answers in season three - assuming the show doesn't get cancelled first.

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Podcasts Ahoy! 2025 Edition

It's been a minute hasn't it?  I did a post for Youtube channels instead of podcasts last year, as several of my favorite media podcasts have been quietly morphing into Youtube channels recently, but there's still a clear distinction between the two mediums.  And I've definitely latched on to enough new podcasts over the past two years to write a new post about.   Below are a couple of new and new-to-me offerings that I've started following since my last podcast post.

Going Rogue - Australian writer Tansy Gardam is my new favorite podcaster.  She is the main writer, researcher and host of "Going Rogue," which has gone through a couple of permutations, but can be broadly described as a show about the endless drama of getting movies made.  Initially, in 2022, it was a six part miniseries on the making of "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story."  This was followed by seasons covering "Solo: A Star Wars Story," the 2007 WGA strike and its fallout, and "The Pirates of the Caribbean" movies.  Lately, there have been a lot of one-off episodes devoted to a diverse selection of titles including "Megalopolis," "Gladiator II," and Kenneth Branagh's "Cinderella."  Every episode is extremely well researched, often following the development of a film for decades on its way to the silver screen.  I love the "Megalopolis" episode in particular for explaining the reasoning behind some of Francis Ford Coppola's artistic choices, including his fascination with "live cinema."    

The Big Picture - I've brought up the Ringer podcasts before, but I want to give special recognition to "The Big Picture," hosted by Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins, and a revolving group of other co-hosts.  The show premiered roughly around 2017, and follows the familiar format of reviews and interviews revolving around new releases.  However, "The Big Picture" is also run by some of the most insanely knowledgeable film geeks I've ever encountered, and they dig into awards races, top five/ten/twenty-five lists, and rankings with a gusto that I find super impressive.  What they're best known for is probably their movie drafts, where they'll invite a few friends and run a draft of movies by year or actor or director.  They did one for Tom Cruise movies recently that ensured I will never forget which "Mission: Impossible" movie is which, ever again.  However, the nerdiest movie podcast discussion I think I've ever heard in my life was probably their Sidney Lumet episode last year, when it became apparent that Sean had seen all or nearly all of the forty-three movies that Lumet had directed over the course of his storied career.  Now that's dedication.

The Spiel - From the folks that brought you "The Kingcast" comes another podcast about a famous Steve.  "The Spiel" is all about the films and shows that Steven Spielberg was involved with in some way.  Hosted by Eric Vespe, the guests have been fantastic, including some of Spielberg's major collaborators like producer Frank Marshall and screenwriter David Koepp.  Rian Johnson stopped by  a few months ago to talk about the early episodes of "Columbo" that Spielberg directed at the beginning of his career.  I especially appreciate that the show counts any Spielberg involvement as fair game, so they'll talk about movies that Spielberg or Amblin only produced, like "Casper" or "The Goonies" or "Joe vs The Volcano."  There's an "Animaniacs" epsiode.  There's an episode on John Williams scores for Spielberg movies.  I hope that Vespe will manage to wrangle an appearance by Spielberg himself one of these days - "The Kingcast" got their Steve, so it's not impossible.

Little Gold Men - Finally, I want to send a little love to Vanity Fair's long-running "Little Gold Men" awards season podcast, especially since we're losing another host to editorial changes.  It's always a great resource for interviews and putting titles on my radar that I might otherwise have missed.  They also talk about festivals, controversies, business deals, campaigns, and pretty much anything else going on in the industry that could affect the awards races, so I like checking in regularly to keep myself informed.  

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Del Toro Finally Made His "Frankenstein"

Guillermo Del Toro has not hidden the fact that "Frankenstein" is one of his dream projects, embodying all the themes of monsters and the monstrosity of men that have appeared in all of his best work.  So, it's no surprise that his "Frankenstein" film is one of his most lavishly beautiful, and the story it tells feels very personal to Del Toro.  I'm pretty familiar with all the major film versions of "Frankenstein," and Del Toro's version is a welcome new addition.  I've never seen one quite like it.

We begin in the frozen Arctic, where a dying Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) is rescued by a Danish ship on an expedition to the North Pole, led by Captain Anderson (Lars Mikkelson).  After a thwarted attack by the Creature (Jacob Elordi), Frankenstein relays his history to the captain, starting with his tragic childhood and ending with the creation of The Creature.  This takes up the first half of the film.  The Creature has his say in the second half, covering events until the present day.  In this version of the story, Victor's love interest Elizabeth (Mia Goth), is the daughter of the arms dealer Harlander (Christoph Waltz), who funds Victor's experiments.  She's also not Victor's intended, but the fiancee of Victor's younger brother William (Felix Kammerer), and bonds with Victor over her love of the natural world.

There's an over-the-top theatricality to Victor Frankenstein's half of the film, where Oscar Isaac gives us an arrogant, feckless Frankenstein, who is single-minded in his pursuit of reanimating the dead.  Del Toro makes him more complicit in the tragedies that befall him, especially his unwillingness to recognize the Creature as a person.  Frankenstein has never been a very sympathetic character in any telling of this story, but here Del Toro seeks to humanize him more by framing his behavior as part of a legacy of generational trauma.  Isaac makes him funny, charming, and a showman when he wants to be, and a petulant, cowardly, selfish wretch in his moments of weakness.  Yet, this Frankenstein also displays the ability to learn from his mistakes, and the redemptive ending feels earned.  

However, the best performance in the film is far and away Jacob Elordi as the Creature.  He's totally unrecognizable under the elaborate makeup and prosthetics, and using a voice that has been deepened and modified to sound more inhuman.  Initially the mostly mute, nearly naked newborn Creature seems almost human, and it's the actions of Frankenstein and the Creature's subsequent exposure to the world that create the destructive, rampaging  monster who causes so much harm.  Likewise, Elordi's performance becomes more and more compelling as the Creature gains awareness of and experience with the dark side of humanity.  He comes into focus fairly late in the film, in the subdued, melancholic scenes with an old blind man played by David Bradley, as he draws parallels between Bible stories and his own sad history.   

It's easy to lose sight of how deeply sad and macabre the story is, with Guillermo Del Toro indulging in sumptuous art direction and gloriously colorful cinematography every chance he gets.  And there's never a moment that this doesn't feel like Del Toro's work.  There's almost nothing that recalls James Whale and Boris Karloff - even a few campy moments in the laboratory are of an entirely different tenor.  I don't begrudge him any of the excess and pageantry, as the amount of effort that went into every frame of this film is incredibly impressive.  It often feels like Del Toro is throwing everything he has into "Frankenstein," as if he may never get a chance to make another movie.  However, "Frankenstein" is at its most moving when it's at its simplest, and the visuals are at their bleakest.      

And I found it very affecting that eventually we do get to the heart of the story, where Frankenstein has to confront the Creature and himself.  And despite all the beautiful gore and dazzling costumes and magnificent set design, the best parts of the film come down to good, old fashioned storytelling through the carefully played conversations and a great monologue or two.  Guillermo Del Toro's "Frankenstein" is a horror film and a creature feature, but it's also a tremendously touching piece about fatherhood and creation and taking responsibility for your actions.  It's my favorite film of Del Toro's in over a decade, and it was worth the wait.

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"The Diplomat," Year Three

Because I don't know what you're doing watching the third season of "The Diplomat" without having watched the first two, spoilers for those first two seasons lie ahead.  Please step carefully.

Recent events in world politics mean that "The Diplomat" now operates in an alternate universe where there are still some standards as to how major US politicians and officials conduct themselves.  No matter what the outrageous twists and turns the writers come up with this season, it all feels perfectly plausible in light of what's actually going on with the current administration.  And boy did they fit a lot of twists and turns into the eight episodes that make up this season.

Initially, there are several major changes in the status quo, with Grace Penn becoming the U.S. President, which means the Vice Presidency is up for grabs, and Bradley Whitford gets to join the cast as Todd Penn, the delightful First Gentleman.  Kate also gets a new love interest in Callum Ellis (Aidan Turner), a British spy, and we spend a lot more time with Billie Appiah (Nana Mensah), the no-nonsense White House Chief of Staff, and Nora Koriem (Rosaline Elbay), the VP's Chief of Staff.  Kate and Hal's marriage is tested as it has never been tested before.  And while the whole messy affair with the aircraft carrier attack is no longer the most pressing problem in the show, of course the potential for scandal remains high and everyone's trying to figure out who takes the blame.      

I really enjoy the way that "The Diplomat" has become such an ensemble show, and it's now less about solving a particular crisis, and more about seeing what happens when you have Allison Janney and Rory Kinnear facing off against each other in a scene, or how Bradley Whitford has somehow ended up in the position of the show's best comic relief.  We get a lot of Rufus Sewell as Hal this year, which means that the storylines with Hal and Kate feel fully front and center and supercharged in a way they haven't always been previously.  "The Diplomat" is at its best when the Wylers are at each other's throats.  And at the same time, I can't help rooting for them as a couple.  

Though the quality level remains high, It feels like the writing has taken a step down this year, not only because the premise of "The Diplomat" has shifted from its original form into something else, but also because it's clear that the show has become beholden to certain expectations.  We have to end on a big cliffhanger, for instance.  It's also noticeable that the show does a few tricky things to keep every member of our main cast involved in the big storylines and in close proximity with each other, most notably Stuart Hayford and Eidra Park.  "The Diplomat" has proven very capable of juggling all of its characters and ensuring that everyone gets something interesting to do, but there's also a lot less of a sense of narrative momentum with the big mystery of the first season mostly resolved.  The character drama mostly makes up for it, but sometimes they could have used a little more oomph.  

The reliance on big twists also makes it harder to trust when the writers are being sincere about certain storytelling choices.  Aidan Turner is a nice addition to the cast this year, but I was waiting for something terrible to happen to his character  from the moment he was introduced.  I don't think the show is ever going to top the season two finale in any case.  Also, I don't think that the binge model is doing them any favors.  I very deliberately didn't watch more than one episode in a sitting, and it still didn't feel like I had enough time to fully absorb most of the events.  

However, these are pretty minor complaints for one of the best series currently running on any platform.  The production has never looked better, taking advantage of some gorgeous UK locations.  All the actors remain fully at the top of their game, even if they aren't around for long - Rory Kinnear makes his few appearances really count.  And Keri Russell as Kate Wyler remains the kind of heroine who I'll happily watch until the end, even without Hal if it comes to that.  On a show like "The Diplomat," I'm not ruling anything out.  

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PIXAR in the Wilderness

This was a rough summer at the box office, with several notable bombs and unexpected underperformers.  Once sure bets are now no longer guaranteed to even make their budgets back, as evidenced by the shrugs that greeted "Thunderbolts" and "Fantastic Four."  However, today I want to talk about "Elio," the latest PIXAR film.  New PIXAR films used to be a license to print money, and their sequels to past hits like "Inside Out 2" can still be blockbusters.  "Elio," however, despite being well reviewed, and despite being made for the underserved family audience, had the lowest opening for any PIXAR film, not counting the pandemic era releases.

We can parse this in many ways.  First, all films that aren't part of a franchise or based on existing IP have been a much tougher sell in recent years.  However, animated family films tend to have much stronger legs, and aren't so dependent on their opening weekends.  After "Elemental" started soft, with an opening weekend total not much higher than Elio's, it managed a respectable tenth place at the 2023 domestic summer box office, right between "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" and  "Fast X."  I fully expect that "Elio" is going to perform in a similar way, especially since the reviews have been good.

However, there's no getting away from the fact that the cultural cachet of PIXAR films has been significantly eroded.  Many blame the pandemic, where Disney decided to skip theatrical releases for three original PIXAR films - "Soul," "Turning Red," and "Luca," -  and premiere them on the Disney+ streaming service instead.  However, things may have already been on a downswing.  "Onward," which hit theaters in March of 2020, only had a partial release because of lockdowns, but its opening weekend was one of the lowest for a PIXAR film at that time.  Some blame the flood of sequels that outnumbered the original PIXAR films in the 2010s or the departure of John Lasseter in 2018.  Some blame changing audience tastes and expectations.   

Because I'm an animation nerd, I can't help drawing parallels to Disney animation.  PIXAR has been in the business of making movies for a little over thirty years.  Its first feature, "Toy Story," was released in 1995.  When the Disney animation studios were at the same point in their history, thirty years after "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," it was 1967.  "The Jungle Book" was enjoying massive box office success, but Walt Disney had just died, and the studio was about to enter a twenty year period of decline and obscurity before its Renaissance.  They nearly closed down for good in the 1980s.  During this era, the original artists who were the backbone of the studio were retiring, and there was a sense of cheapness and  artistic stagnation around the projects that were being produced.

There are many differences between the two studios, of course, but the one thing I keep coming back to is that PIXAR, like Disney, was a storied pioneer of a particular form of  animation, and set the standard for what animated films could be for a very long time.  Though PIXAR always had competitors from the beginning, their movies just looked and sounded and played better than what came out of Dreamworks or Illumination or Blue Sky.  The level of quality was dependably higher, the films more polished, and the talent involved more impressive.  That's changed over time, and now PIXAR often feels like it's a few steps behind, relying on its old characters and too much nostalgia.  

Probably no bigger indicator of the trouble PIXAR is in is the changed attitude toward its familiar house style.  "The PIXAR style" used to be the default for CGI, what everyone else was trying to look like.  After "Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse," now the 2D/3D hybrid styles are becoming more popular, and a film like "Elio" starts looking safe and old hat.  The big animated hit of the summer was Sony and Netflix's "KPop Demon Hunters," a streaming release that nobody saw coming.  We're far from PIXAR reaching any kind of artistic or economic nadir, but after thirty years, it also feels like the studio is overdue for a change - culturally, artistically, and maybe in other ways too.  "Luca" director Enrico Casarosa has an upcoming feature that could be the beginning of this.  "Gatto," due in summer of 2027, will be PIXAR's first "hand-painted" animated film.  

Change is not easy, however.  Again, it took Disney twenty years to get out of the wilderness, and their transition from traditional to CGI animation a decade later was also a rough one.  Everyone loves "Tangled" and "Frozen," but forgets that "Dinosaur," "Bolt," "Chicken Little," and "Meet the Robinsons" preceded them.  What's really interesting this time around is that there's a high likelihood that we're going to see both PIXAR and Disney Animation go through their next transitional phases simultaneously.  After the recent flops of "Strange World" and "Wish," Disney's in just as bad a position as PIXAR right now with its originals.

But if history tells us anything, they'll be back on top again soon enough.

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Earth to "Elio"

It took me a while to figure out why PIXAR's "Elio" felt so familiar, even though we haven't really had much children's media about aliens or space exploration in a while.  And then it hit me - the plot was taking a lot of beats from the kids' science-fiction films that were popular in the 1980s after "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" was a hit - "The Last Starfighter," "Flight of the Navigator," and "Explorers."  "Elio" often feels like a jazzed up version of one of these stories that might have been made in the '80s, if the filmmakers at that time had had the resources and technology available.  

Eleven year-old Elio Solís (Yonas Kibreab) is a lonely kid who is obsessed with getting himself abducted by aliens.  He lives with his Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña), who loves him, but is at her wit's end trying to stay on top of his alien-attracting schemes and oddball behavior.  She wants him to make some friends instead of spending so much time by himself.  Eventually Elio does attract the attention of cosmic beings, and he ends up in the middle of a conflict between the Communiverse, populated by a collection of friendly alien ambassadors, and an aggressive invader named Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett).  He also does make his first friend, a tardigrade-like alien kid named Glordon (Remy Edgerly).   

  

Even though "Elio" is about space travel and aliens, it feels very small scale and very personal.  Elio went through some early childhood trauma and never really figured out how to connect to anybody on Earth, so he's looking for somewhere else to call home.  The adventure he goes on is full of beautifully designed, but completely kid-friendly aliens.  Even the villain turns out to be a concerned father whose better nature can be appealed to with the right tactics.  All the messaging is very sweet and positive, about learning to accept help and find common ground.  Though the opening sequence happens in the wake of parental loss, this doesn't play a big part in the story.  What peril there is, is pretty mild.  And I expect that all of this is the reason why "Elio" comes off as more of a film specifically made for children, and pretty young children at that, instead of a general audiences film.  The only real adult in the whole story is Olga, an Air Force major who can be called on to navigate a spaceship in a pinch, but acts like a stressed out Mom most of the time.  

I respect where "Elio" is coming from, and every intention behind it was clearly good.  However, it comes off as very bland and very derivative of other PIXAR features.  We've had a few too many earnest PIXAR kid heroes learning important life lessons lately, and a few too many premises that seem overly familiar and safe.  I kept wondering if "Elio" might have recycled some of the assets from "Lightyear," which has similar space travel aesthetics, or maybe some of the bioluminescent critters from Disney's "Strange World" to help fill out the ranks of the aliens.  I like that "Elio" incorporates a few recordings of Carl Sagan, and real world references to the achievements of the U.S. space program, but at the same time its all feels a little too nostalgic - too preoccupied with looking backwards.  The Space Race is now decades in the past, and it's been proven time and again that the current generation of kids isn't interested in what might have fascinated their parents and grandparents when they were the same age.  "Lightyear," "Tomorrowland," "The Electric State," and plenty of other bombs have made the same mistake.

Am I overthinking this?  Probably, but "Elio" often feels so much like somebody trying to recapture the feeling of their favorite films from when they were a kid, except with all the rough edges sanded off and all the scary or dangerous or inappropriate bits scrubbed out.  "Elio" feels so toothless next to similar films that have tackled similar subject matter.  I may not be happy about "Lilo and Stitch" being remade, for instance, but that one still felt more gutsy than this.  Maybe they should have gone ahead and just set "Elio" in the '80s, back when an eleven year-old boy was expected to get in much more serious trouble.  

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