Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:16 Hello everybody and welcome back. I am so excited to get to talk to you today about the movie Elemental. If you caught yesterday's program, you'd remember that I talked about Carl's date being the little short movie ahead of Elemental. And honestly, it was probably the best part about this whole movie because Elemental is a little bit of a loaded cannon with some of the subjects that are addressed in this. And though it's aimed at young children, I don't know if that's necessarily the target audience, even with the content. I know this is gonna be very controversial. I gave it a an an instant rating, which I really debated on with some of the topics that are addressed in this one. But I think with parental explanations and things like that, or just the avoidance of this one as a whole, you may be wondering what I gave it score wise.
Speaker 0 00:01:04 Elemental did just get a 4.25, so a score of four and a quarter out of 10 on the deputy scale that falls right in the low end of Watchable. But forgettable, and I'm gonna kind of get into that a little bit more here with Elemental, it's about a young daughter named Ember. Her parents immigrated to Element City from a long ways away. And so she is just trying to make them proud. They run a little shop there in Element City and so they're trying to just bring her up so she could take over everything. But the thing is she has a huge problem with her temper. She just blows her top literally and just loses it. Even just little things. She has like no coping skills whatsoever. I mean, that's kind of a side note, but the movie doesn't really address that a whole lot of why she has these issues with her anger.
Speaker 0 00:01:54 It shows that, I mean, as the story goes on, she does calm down, but that's not really part of that. But basically she's trying to make them proud by just playing her part and helping tend to the store. And it's really important to her family to just re be familiar with the old ways and do things the old ways and very stay very true to traditions and things like that. And in situations such as this, that can be very difficult to do well in one of the ways that she's trying to do it, there's gonna be this big sale coming up and her dad has left her uncharted of the store. So she's so excited and she's getting ready to get ready for the store and she blows up over just something like this over something little again. And in doing so, she ends up bringing in an inspector unexpectedly, as you can imagine.
Speaker 0 00:02:42 And the thing is, this inspector is water. And if you haven't quite caught on yet, or not that you really could, I know what I'm saying here, but the with Amber, she is fire. So that's her element. If you ha, I mean I hadn't really explained that yet, but with her name being Amber, I was kind of, of hoping maybe feel people got it. But yeah, I just need to be a little bit more clearer on some of that. That might help wake up Jen <laugh>. But so yeah, the inspector that comes in is actually water. And as you can imagine, fire and water don't mix. And so the rest of the, the story as it plays out goes along what her story was growing up, what his story was growing up, the fact that they do kind of fall in love and they're trying to figure out how they can be together with being two opposing elements, just kind of how that is all playing out with their families and everything.
Speaker 0 00:03:30 And that's, it's one of the situations with their families that gets a little bit sticky, is not sticky in the literal sense, it's just the family is made of water and it would wash it away, but you in, in the more metaphorical sense. But it addresses the fact that when sh when Amber meets his family, she, she also meets siblings and one of the siblings who they start to introduce her as a sister, they go back on it and they kind of dance around it a little bit. But the, she's a non-binary character now for those unfamiliar with this modern subculture of sorts. I'm trying to say it without saying it or without getting my show band <laugh>, but uh, non-binary are people that I don't, that do not identify as a male or a female. Now, as you can imagine, that's more than a little bit strange.
Speaker 0 00:04:23 And like I said, it's almost a side note in the story, but they make it prevalent enough. It just in that short scene that you just can't quite get it outta your head. And between the temper issues and some of those issues that are addressed and then kind of how they get around, sneaking around some of the things and stuff that are going on so that her father's store doesn't get shut down and they're, he, they're trying to help each other reexperience memories and overall the story, it tries to have good flow. It really does. It just, it never quite finds its footing. And like I said, it's a cute story. It's just not necessarily aimed at a young crowd. And unless you really wanna try to explain to your kids what a non-binary character is or how they're trying to perceive this family member, uh, I, yeah, it's good.
Speaker 0 00:05:24 It puts parents in an awkward position when you have a movie such as this and it puts adults in an awkward position because I mean, I'm almost 50 years old and I don't even wanna try to explain this to people cause it's like, what in the world? I just don't get it. And eventually it all comes full circle. As you can imagine in the element city, you've got air, you've got earth, you've got fire, you've got water, and how they all kind of intermingle and live together and work together. Like I said, it ends up coming full circle in the end, but the story just feels like it's missing something. If it feels like they're giving you too much and not enough at the same time, they're like overwhelming you with information with all of this stuff just in your face. And at the same time you're just kinda left, ugh, at the end of the day.
Speaker 0 00:06:09 Not, not that that's a great description, but I don't really know how else to put this. There's the most important part of the story actually comes at the end. And I'm trying to think how to do this without giving it away, but the best part of the story is probably the last 10 minutes. As weird as that sounds, Amber is able to work things out with her dad and she's able to get things under control. Like I, like I said, it doesn't really address that a whole lot, but it does touch on it just a little bit and doing something that is very true to their ancestors and true to their culture. Something happens at the end of the movie and it was honestly the most heartwarming part of the entire movie. But I don't know if it's worth sitting through the rest to get to it.
Speaker 0 00:06:49 That's gonna be entirely up to you. Now mind you, you may absolutely love this movie and great if you do, but there's just something about stories like this that just where there's a story to it and there's a story that's told, but it just doesn't seem to deliver. I mean, it doesn't have the, the, the hap the traditional happy ending that Disney Pixar gives us. It doesn't have the, the warm fuzzies at the end and all that. And I guess because of them just trying to tackle too much with the story and then just the way that they address some of the issues that are going on, which I only touched on a couple of them here. Yeah, I, I honestly would really hesitate to recommend this one. But like I said, this, this is one that you wanna check out when it comes on Disney Plus or whatever, check out maybe the first five, 10 minutes and then the last five, 10 minutes of the movie.
Speaker 0 00:07:39 And that'll give you the biggest gist of the whole story as a whole without dealing with all the crap in between. So, uh, ultimately, like I said, that's gonna be up to you. I, as I've been starting to address with my movie reviews, I like to acknowledge if there's dedications or in loving memory of things like that, that are in the end of the credits. I think if they take the time to actually put them in the credits, I wanna take the time to address these. And so towards the end of the credits, I wanna give each of these proper dedication. And please forgive me if any of these are your friends, family members, et cetera. And I do mispronounce the names. It is not intentional, so please forgive me on that. But it has a dedication to say in appreciation of Miss Renee in loving memory of Ralph Eggleston in Loving memory of Thomas Gonzalez in Loving Memory of Amber Marelli in Loving memory of Jay Garrett Shero. After all of those, it says, thank you mom and dad for all the sacrifices that you made for our family when it lists their names of young Toon. And
Speaker 1 00:08:54 Again, I apologize if I did mispronounce those. And then at the very end of the credits, it says, with deep appreciation to all of those who help us burn brightly. Now, that is probably the biggest part of the movie that I am just a hundred percent on board with because we all have those people in our lives that just help us burn brightly and help reignite the fire sometimes when we lose it ourselves. And maybe that's the most important part of this story, or the biggest thing that you could take away from it is just remembering and appreciating those who help you burn the brightest. Because we all have somebody, even may, maybe we've met them, maybe we haven't met them yet in our lives, but there's always gonna be that somebody that actually helps us burn better than we ever have before. I'm lucky enough that I have found mine and my husband, our son, and my sister, and so that they keep me burning pretty bright <laugh> and sometimes by throwing gasoline on the fire and sometimes just by shielding it from the wind and keeping it burn out. So until the next time, I hope you have had fun coming along with me on this journey. Please like and subscribe so that I can share more of these great movie reviews with you. And I look forward to talking to you soon. Bye-bye.
