Unfortunately, any parent can tell you that once your kid likes a certain movie, you’re gonna see it a lot, and my son really likes 2 movies that I’ve seen a lot. So I figured I’d write a bit about them since I’ve seen each probably 100 times more than a typical movie reviewer. I’m not watching it again to review it so this is from memory.

Elemental

Characters:

The protagonist is Ember, a snarky cunt who gets really angry and then destroys everything in the room. She’s a fire elemental.

Her dad is super racist against water as on of his main character traits, he’s one of the most likable characters in the film. In many scenes, his line read is angrily saying “WATER!!!”

Her mom is a woowoo crystal lady who does fortune telling.

Wade is a water elemental. At first he looks like a giant loser, but he’s hiding his power level and is actually a gigachad looking for an Asian girlfr–oops, spoilers.

Wade’s family shows up in three scenes, only one of substance, it’s a bigger family. His dad is dead, meaning he could have been an anime protagonist but instead decided to be in this movie. I probably would have chosen the former, but I understand the allure of being in a Disney movie.

General plot:

The movie starts with Ember’s family entering the city as new immigrants, and then being rejected from many apartments because they’re made out of goddamn fire and even set one of the places on fire just by touching it. Eventually they buy a rotted out old building. It shows the family building a store and living in the building, and ember growing up next to her dad. He seems like a great guy. Some water guy comes in and starts breaking shit and she and her dad chase him off. She asks a bunch of times for the old man to give her the shop. It shows her growing up until it reaches the events of the movie. In this scene her dad lets her run a lady through the till. She get so mad she sets everything on fire, blowing out the glass in their display case (which she repairs using her fire), and setting a bunch of stuff on fire in a fire store, showing us her biggest character flaw, her bad temper.

Her dad wants to sleep in so he says she can run their big sale of the year. She goes off and does a bunch of deliveries saying she wants to beat his record. A plant kid tries to hit on her but he’s like 12 and she’s a six foot tall plume of flame, so she sets the flower he gives her on fire. She says “elements don’t mix!” There’s a big sequence of delivering things. Then she gets home, and her dad is sleeping at the counter. She puts him to bed and finishes.

The next day is the big red dot sale. She gets so mad trying to mind the store she’s about to explode like a hand grenade, so she goes into the basement and does so, setting everything on fire in the process. Have you ever worked a minimum wage and not set off an explosion destroying the place after one day? Congratulations, you are officially more competent than this dummy. This sets off a water leak through a water pipe. The entire place is full of water (which WILL kill her – she has half her face blown off, no I’m not kidding it happens a few times to fire people in this show). but she uses her water to weld the pipe shut (I still don’t know – would that work? I feel like the water would soak up all the heat). A water guy slides in through the pipe and starts writing city citations. Is this even legal? It feels illegal. Anyway, she tries to chat him up to stop writing tickets but only tells him he really needs to write a lot more tickets. Then there’s a big chase scene through the city because she wants to burn the tickets. There’s a cool scene where the water and fire slide through a crevice between buildings, and eventually they end up at city hall. She rushes ahead and sets a giant fire to stop him but he slips past her.

He goes in and she’s sitting there suicidally depressed, talking about how her dad is going to lose everything because of her, and when she’s suicidally depressed she does this glowy thing and water guy thinks it’s pretty lit, but he is convinced but has sent the stuff off the be processed, so they go visit the plant guy who does the processing to try to convince him to stop and in the process she loses her temper burning everything in the room including the plant guy to cinders(He’s fine, just needs to grow all his leafy body hair back). That’s now score 2 for the explosive temper that literally destroys everything in the room.

Ember goes home and her dad is fighting off the leaks she caused, and her mom lays this guilt trip on her about how they had to leave the old country because of a big storm destroying their shop there. We also get to see some fantastic racism from her dad against water. I think he secretly believes Hotler was right. They also talk about the cultural significance of this blue flame thing.

The next day we see Wade walking by a door (I don’t know what’s going on here, the door is just a door not the big city hall doors we just saw, maybe a back entrance?) and he sees something that looks like it’s on fire and it sets his man-purse on fire so he starts to stomp it out and she’s like “hey stop stomping on me” and then he’s all awkward like “you’re so hot” and she’s all judgmental – hey lady, you set his man purse on fire chill out. Turns out she was there hoping to talk his boss into not putting the tickets through. She invites herself to a sports ball game since wade and his boss are both going.

At the sports ball game, Ember sounds like a skeezy used car salesman trying to convince the boss who is a wind elemental to tear up the tickets and fails miserably, getting into a slur-off. I’m pretty sure she called the boss an n-word, and the boss called her a different n-word right back, but then wade makes everything better by riling up the crowd so hard the home team wins the game.

After the game, the boss who is happy now because her team won listens to ember who has a real gift for gab and upon hearing about the leak ember caused says she definitely needs to shut down the store and tear it all to pieces (great work, Churchill), but thanks to Wade the boss gives them one chance to find and fix the leak and it’s all good.

The next day, ember sneaks out to meet with wade, and she just randomly destroys a bunch of city infrastructure up on a roof to build a hot air balloon (as one does), and they take off. They see a couple plant elementals banging or something. Wade almost dies from the heat because it’s a 6 foot tall walking talking fire3 spell, but he keeps it together because the power of water boners is stronger. There’s a big exposition dump about how there’s this special tree she wanted to see but wasn’t allowed because her and her dad are giant walking talking nightmares of hot plasma, but then the place got flooded so now she can never see it ever how sad don’t you feel for her? Me neither.

They find the spot, it turns out there’s a broken wall. There just happens to be a bunch of sand bags right there, so with Wade doing the placing, they put a bunch of sandbags down to stop the leak. While in the air Wade mentions that sometimes you’re just mad because your brain is just trying to let you know something you aren’t ready to hear yet.

I think at that point he asks her on a date because he’s got a death wish and evaporating is an actual thing that can happen. At that point there’s a whole montage of dating (I think? I might’ve gotten the sequence wrong, it could happen after this?)

A while later we get to see her dad being racist against water (I think he wants to send them all to Washwitz), it’s wholesome fun for the whole family (as long as your family isn’t water). there’s a flower delivery. She rushes it to the basement and the water in the vases reconstitute into wade. Turns out the sand bags aren’t holding and the crew that was supposed to fix it won’t be doing any work because Wade screwed up and trapped them all in cement. Then the dad shows up and he’s about to stab this water guy he found in his basement (I don’t know, would that even do anything?), but Ember calms him down. Wade claims he’s a food inspector so her dad gives him a bunch of super hot food and he explodes (he got better), and then Wade makes like a tea with the hot food and gets banned from her dads shop. Really great showing here.

They end up meeting at a beach to try to dig sand bags but they realize it’s not going to help and so she’s suicidal again, and she does that pretty lightshow she does when she’s suicidal. Wade instantly perks up (He’s got a thing for suicidal pillars of flame), and also points out that she made glass. They go to the leak and she turns the sand into glass, sealing the gap. They need to get the OK from the boss the next day, so they’ll meet then. He tells her to meet his family for dinner so they can wait for the call.

When she gets home, her dad tells her that because of how well she handled the water guy he’s retiring in 2 days and giving her the shop and he even made a sign.

The next day she sneaks out, and her mom smells love (it’s her fortune telling thing), so she starts shuffling off to find it. Ember has dinner at wade’s place, and uses fire to fix a water jug that got broken, and everyone is very impressed. The boss calls up, the glass is an ok fix. Wade’s mom tells Ember about an internship in a glass company.

Ember’s mom gave up and stumbles away before dinner ends.

Ember leaves dinner and seems mad (because she always seems mad or depressed, that’s her 2 modes), and wade goes with her. They drive really fast on a motorcycle and nearly die a bunch of times. She admits that the reason she’s so mad is she doesn’t actually want the shop (she probably shouldn’t have asked 100 times when she was younger then, but what do I know?), but doesn’t want to admit it. They go back, and Ember’s mom shows up and lays some fantastic racism against the water boy, but they go into her place to do a fortune telling. Embers mom doesn’t think it’ll work since you need fire, but Wade cleverly uses his refractive body to form a lens to set a fire using the light in the room. Embers racist dad wakes up and Wade has to leave in a hurry. Ember’s dad lays on the “I’m your old dying dad, I’m so glad you’re taking over the shop” routine.

The next day she goes to his place and gives him a glob of glass she previously made because she’s breaking up with him. He doesn’t take no for an answer and tells her to come with him to see something. They go to the place with the tree she wanted to see. Wade’s boss is there (I call my boss out regularly to save my relationships, don’t you?), and uses the wind elemental power to prepare an air bubble. Wade swims into the water with her in the air bubble and they see the tree, and it’s a whole nice thing, then the air is running out so she nearly dies but is pretty stoked that she got to see the tree, even if she did die. Wade knows she’s weak in the knees from near death and it’s time to shoot his shot – he asks her to touch, and it turns out they don’t die, so they were pretty excited about that. Then he holds her and is all like “I’m so happy I have you” which turns out to be her trigger word and she flees in terror. She says something about “And the fact you don’t understand is a reason we can never be together”

The next day is the shop getting handed over to her, it’s a big thing, and wade crashes the party. He goes “You said this was the reason we can never be together” which is not what she said you slimy sleazeball water – no wonder embers dad hates you you’re filled with lies and water. He tries to apply the rizz and instead only manages to seduce her dad… into not retiring. She isn’t impressed. Sometimes you roll a 1.

The next day he’s about to leave and she’s doing deliveries and then her glass thing starts to crack. Then it breaks, and takes half the city with it. Ember bravely drives like a maniac to warn everyone in firetown. Wade sees what happens and leaves the airport.

Her dad begs her mom to let him go to save the blue flame, but I don’t know what he’s going to do – he’s like 2 feet tall and wider than he is tall. I don’t think you can just be racist to a flash flood and it’ll help (it’s him though, so maybe?) Ember, being like 6 feet tall and having the acrobatic skills of a lifelong circus performer flips in and tries to save the shop. Wade shows up and Ember is like “You came back! After all I said!” and you know that bodes well for the future. “Oh, you this whipped, huh? I’m gonna enjoy this…”

The water breaks through and she tries to make glass to save the blue fire but it didn’t work last time it didn’t work this time.

Ember is tossed into the back room which is now covered in debris. She’s upset about losing the blue flame but Wade got it (It seems to me he’s saved her ass at every juncture). She seals up the entrance leaks with her fire, but wade is starting to evaporate (yeah, because he’s in an enclosed room next to ifrit the destroyer). They try to leave through the chimney but the flooding destroys and plugs up the chimney. He’s evaporating and she becomes suicidally depressed which is really his thing but he evaporates.

A while later everything is cleared and they let her out, and water guy is dead (how happy was the dad? They never got into it but I’m sure to him the only good water is a dead water). But then they make water guy cry and he leaks into a bucket at the bottom of the chimney.

Because it’s pretty difficult to imagine exactly what their future would be like, her line of triumph is something “I love you Wade… I want to…have you, FOREVER… in my life…” it’s an awkward line coupled with an awkward line read because it sure looks like “happily ever after” is existing a couple feet apart at all times.

Then he’s back and they kiss and that’s basically the end of the movie after some extra scenes showing she didn’t need to take over the shop.

The moral of the story:

You don’t need to control your explosive, destructive anger, you’re only mad because you aren’t getting your way.

Filial piety is for the birds (or don’t worry it’ll turn out you don’t even need to carry on your fathers dream anyway you DISAPPOINTING FAILURE)

I think a third theme of the movie is miscegenation, but honestly I don’t know what I’d say about race mixing in the film that would mean anything, just like the in the movie – most people don’t literally destroy one another in each other’s presence and consider that a good candidate for a life partner. One of them is literally fire and will be put out by water, and one of them is literally water and will be evaporated by fire. Like… They say that ‘love is all you need’, but I feel like the other thing you need is not being antimatter to one another.

Why do kids like it:

It’s really pretty. The whole thing is just excuses for the animators to create really beautiful scenes with the characters as brushes.

What do I think:

I’m not a fan. The moral is weak, the story is weak, it’s all spectacle and no substance. The main character never needs to improve herself, the world seems like it could be really interesting but doesn’t really get built all that much, it just seems pretty sparse. The fundamental story is also sort of self-refuting since being alone in a room literally kills the co-protaganist.

I’m an anime watcher, so plot contrivances don’t bug me that much, such as the bizarre idea of a city manager asking a rando to fix a leak and making canceling a bunch of tickets contingent on fixing that leak. They’re stretched pretty tight here though, for some people the illusion might just snap.

Given the themes of filial piety and a few other things (including the link between dragons and flame), I tend to think the fire people are coded as mostly Asian, and the water people are coded as mostly white Anglo Saxon. Not that it actually matters, since in a lot of ways it doesn’t end up mattering. The conflicts are against a water leak on one end, the main character’s roid rage on the other, and in between there’s a romance between a roid raging explosion factory and a gigachad who constantly fixes everything for her and gets dumped on at every opportunity. Any themes they hoped to explore were lost in the maelstrom.

Although filial piety is set up as one of the antagonists, I like Ember’s dad. He seems like a decent hard working guy who wants to do right by his family. After seeing this movie approximately 9001 times, hearing him scream “WATER” in anger and fear never gets old with me.

Do you want to watch this movie 9001 times? No no oh Jesus lord god no. It’s the sort of thing you see once, go “oh that was neat” and move on with your life, probably to never think about again. It’s pretty and insubstantial, like cotton candy, and about as healthy for your kids. If you think your kids might want to watch this 9001 times, don’t even mention it because it’s not worth it.

As a contrast, we watched Bolt recently, from around 2008. In that movie, the main character had an arc where he had to come to understand the authentic world as it is and separate out the fantasy elements, to piece out the real from the fiction, and in the process came to realize he wasn’t a dog with superpower, he was just a regular dog and he needed to learn to cope with being a regular dog and not an actual TV superhero. In spite of that journey, when his owner was in peril he went into a burning building and nearly died saving his owners life with the last few gasps of consciousness before being overwhelmed by smoke himself showing that despite learning he wasn’t a superhero the relationship he had with his owner was real and worth risking his life to protect. That’s a movie whose message I’d like to see again and again.

Bolt’s side stories also had important moral lessons, such as the deceptive network exec laying a guilt trip on the little girl despite the fact that we saw earlier all she cares about is ratings, and the story of the agent pushing her around. Those side stories I think contributed to the story’s moral fiber.