Elio Review – Pixar Shoots for the Stars and Mostly Lands the Landing

After a few creative stumbles and a run of sequels (Inside Out 2, Lightyear, Toy Story 4), Pixar’s latest original feature Elio feels like a breath of fresh, interstellar air. Co-directed by Domee Shi (Turning Red), Madeline Sharafian, and Adrian Molina (Coco), this vibrant cosmic coming-of-age story marks a welcome return to the kind of ambitious, imaginative storytelling that made Pixar a household name.

We’re introduced to Elio Solis (voiced by Yonas Kibreab), an 11-year-old outsider grappling with grief and loneliness. Living on a military base with his well-meaning but preoccupied aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña), Elio spends his time staring at the stars and hoping for something, anything, beyond the mundanity of Earth. When he accidentally contacts a group of aliens by signing off a transmission with “Okay, bye, love you!”, he’s mistaken for Earth’s ambassador and transported to the Communiverse, an intergalactic diplomatic hub populated by beings from all across the universe.

From here, Elio kicks into high gear. The Communiverse is an explosion of colour and creativity, brimming with psychedelic alien life and awe-inspiring world-building. Every scene in this interstellar setting feels like Pixar’s animators letting loose with their most inspired concepts. A standout is a creature that speaks by excreting glowing green orbs, it is delightfully bizarre and oddly touching.

Yet, the emotional core of the film comes in the form of Glordon (Remy Edgerly), the unexpectedly gentle son of the intimidating warlord Grigon (Brad Garrett). Glordon’s budding friendship with Elio gives the film its most heartfelt moments, with both characters navigating their own struggles with loneliness, identity, and the pressure of living up to expectations. It’s classic Pixar territory, personal stakes set against a high-concept backdrop, and it works beautifully. There are waves of emotional layers behind this that mix with nostalgia to give

If there’s a flaw, it’s in the first act. The Earth-bound scenes are competent but feel a bit too familiar, leaning heavily on Pixar’s usual toolkit of loss and longing. It’s not to say it’s bad, it is just well tread territory that the studio have shown us many times before. It doesn’t take away from the emotion of what’s happening, it just feels a little overused. Fortunately, once the film blasts off, it soars. It has no problem blending humour, cosmic wonder, and emotional sincerity in a way that few studios can pull off.

Elio also manages to sneak in some big-picture ideas, grounding its fantastical elements in genuine curiosity about the universe. Carl Sagan quotes pepper the soundtrack, adding philosophical weight to Elio’s journey and underscoring a central theme: the desire to connect, whether across galaxies or in our own families.

While it might not hit the emotional highs of Up or the genre-defining brilliance of Inside Out, Elio is still a triumph in its own right — visually rich, emotionally resonant, and brimming with that special kind of Pixar magic. It’s a love letter to dreamers, outsiders, and anyone who’s ever looked to the stars and wondered, what if?

 A slow Earthbound start gives way to a cosmic delight. Elio is a wonderfully weird, visually inventive space tale that reminds us Pixar still has original magic left in the tank.