Elio is a space adventure that Toy Story’s Andy would actually enjoy

While this may not make it a great film, it does make Elio the kind of movie that will actually captivate young viewers in particular. Where other recent Pixar releases have been distinctly adolescent coming-of-age stories (Turning Red, Elemental) and/or focused on mature themes (Soul, Onward), Elio is fantastical escapism for children. It’s very silly; I almost want to say that, along with Lightyear, Elio is the kind of movie that Over the Moon, Glen Keane’s 2020 space fantasy, could have been if it hadn’t been too daft to hold together. Elio would be an ideal first theatrical experience for a young child.

Older viewers may find it agreeable if familiar fare, as extravagant in its visual opulence as it is formulaic in its thematic and storytelling choices. With a trio of directors (Turning Red’s Domee Shi and first-time directors Madeline Sharafian and Adrian Molina) and a different trio of writers (including Turning Red co-writer Julia Cho and Soul co-writer Mike Jones), Elio lacks the auteur vibe of most Pixar fare. Instead, it feels like the work of a very competent committee.

A committee that has definitely seen Galaxy Quest and The Last Starfighter, among others. It’s the story of a human boy who finds himself catapulted into an extraterrestrial conflict, with the leaders of a gentle but feeble alien federation mistaking him for a great Earth leader and looking to him for salvation from a bullying warlord they have no idea how to handle. Meanwhile, an artificial replacement covers for his absence on Earth.

For Elio, this is a dream come true, more or less. For most of his young life he’s been fascinated with UFOs and desperate to make contact and get himself abducted. An orphan whose life can be bumpy at times, including some issues with bullying, Elio seems to think he’s a long-suffering Harry Potter awaiting his dream invitation to an outer-space Hogwarts. What is he really? More like the young protagonist from Big Hero 6: smart, quirky, obsessive, and a bit of a handful for his overwhelmed but devoted single aunt.

Like Hiro Hamada’s aunt, Aunt Olga works, but her career has far more plot relevance: She’s an Air Force major with derailed dreams of being an astronaut. (Like Saldana, Elio and his aunt have Dominican and Latino heritage; casting Saldana links the character to Gamora and Uhura. I’m also reminded of Lightyear’s Black female space ranger.) Olga’s Air Force base is charged with tracking orbiting space debris, not the search for extraterrestrial life (SETI)—but Elio isn’t the only person in Olga’s orbit with his head in the stars. Somehow, a message is sent to the universe, and the universe answers.

Elio’s much-anticipated introduction to the utopian “Communiverse” is as wondrous and expansive as only Pixar can make it, which is a lot. Pixar’s storytelling glory days may be long gone, but their visual virtuosity is second to none; Elio does for alien civilizations what Coco did for the land of the dead. “This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen,” Elio gasps shortly after his arrival, only to be told, “This is the bathroom.” (I couldn’t help thinking of Peter Kreeft’s description of purgatory as “heaven’s bathroom.”)

Then the other shoe drops: Lord Grigon shows up, and, if his menacing character design weren’t enough to let us know he’s the heavy, the moment he opens his mouth, Brad Garrett’s voice leaves no room for doubt. (Garrett’s bad-guy growl makes me think first of the outer-space outlaw biker Lobo in the animated Superman and Justice League series; kids may also recognize his sneering tones from the pirate captain in Porco Rosso or Fatso from 1990s Casper.)

Despite their advanced super-technology, alas, the Communiverse ambassadors (Jameela Jamil, among others) are effete, naive creampuffs, pitifully ill-equipped to deal with a Lord Grigon. Here’s where Elio makes a classic Pixar move: The protagonist makes a big mistake. Desperate to be accepted by his new alien friends and not return to his life on Earth, Elio boldly steps into the role of galactic savior. It’s the most dramatic in a series of ill-advised, transgressive acts that he rationalizes in the name of his dream.

From the beginning, Pixar movies have given us flawed protagonists eventually obliged to face the music. I’ve long appreciated this moral theme, particularly as a corrective to the common “Junior Knows Best” trope, though to be fair Elio has one of those too: an alien kid (Remy Edgerly) who befriends Elio and doesn’t want to follow in his unsympathetic father’s footsteps. It all works out, and facing the music for Elio is less arduous than for some, because his story is set in a silly universe in which intergalactic issues are resolved fairly painlessly.

The deeper issue is that Elio feels alone and unwanted on Earth, and suspects that Aunt Olga will prefer his replacement, a quasi-clone so compliant, well-behaved, and cheerful that in fact it freaks her out. One of the film’s themes is that good parents might have hopes and wishes for you, but ultimately they love you the way you are. Making friends in outer space, too, gives Elio confidence to do so on Earth. “You are unique,” Jamil’s character tells Elio, “and ‘unique’ can sometimes feel like ‘alone.’ But you are not alone.”

This is the film’s answer to the question asked by Carl Sagan in audio deployed in the movie: “Are we alone?” Sagan calls this question “an ancient human theme” that can be found “in virtually every culture in some guise or other in religion, folklore, superstition, and now in science.” The search for extraterrestrial intelligence in science fiction has often served as a metaphor for the search for the divine. The Communiverse utopia turns out to be too fragile to represent the infinite, but the image of an open door and a welcome into an unfathomably larger world remains a powerful one.