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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