Elio (2025) Film Review

Elio, an underdog with an active imagination, finds himself inadvertently beamed up to the Communiverse, an interplanetary organization with representatives from galaxies far and wide. Mistakenly identified as Earth’s ambassador to the rest of the universe, he starts to form new bonds with eccentric aliens while discovering who he’s truly meant to be.

Elio is directed by Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi which is the former’s directorial debut with the latter previously directing Turning Red (2022).

Elio is a pretty solid addition to the Pixar library, while there might not be anything new thematically or even story wise going on here, the huge amount of charm is undeniable and it all adds up to make an incredibly fun and adventurous experience for the viewer.

First and foremost the voice cast does a pretty solid job here, Yonas Kibreab plays Elio a character that the viewer can quickly relate to as soon as the film starts. Losing both his parents at a very young age, Elio’s imagination roams free which leads to some genuinely raw moments that, he’s obsessed with communicating with the outside world. Something a lot of kids did when I was growing up and I’m sure the viewer will have the same sort of feeling. The film portrays all of this in such a beautiful way that makes Elio feel like a very real character, yes the film does take liberties in throwing in fantasy elements when it gets to the aliens. But throughout the film the raw feeling of Elio as a character never goes away.

Zoe Saldaña as Olga Solís (Elio’s aunt) is a very important part in this story, there’s sort of an emotional separation between Olga and Elio. Olga gave up on her dreams of becoming an astronaut so she can raise her nephew. Elio’s obsession nearly costs Olga’s job which causes a distance between them. The film explores the pain of both sides incredibly well, it’s done in this thoughtful and genuinely touching way that really makes the viewer immediately care for Elio and Olga.

The animation is stunning, the use of color is very top notch, when the film reaches the space portion of the film it really does feel like you are in another world. While yes the space theme does feel a bit familiar in a lot of ways, what Sharafian and Shi are able to do with it is what makes it so fun, they are able to bring this fun aesthetic and a silly atmosphere that it’s enjoyable. You have your heartwarming moments as well to even things out. It’s some nice world building that while may not going into very deep territory, is still solid enough to capture the main mood of the film’s world.

The writing has many themes going on here such as feeling out of place, loss and loneliness all of which the film does a pretty solid job of exploring. The theme of feeling out of place in particular is beautifully done, combining it with the whole space theme is a smart move as well. Elio is in this spot where he doesn’t know where he belongs due to the loss of his parents, his connection to the outside world can only help him so much. This all leads to beautiful moments that are captured quite well and really are striking in their own ways.

The main criticism here comes from most of the aliens, outside of Gordon who does get quite a bit of development. The rest of the aliens don’t really get a huge amount of development, sure they have a few key differences from on another but there really is not anything that stands out. The antagonist Lord Grigon is just kind of there, he’s fine and he gets the job done but that’s really about it. I do find it interesting that the world itself has a lot more personality and gets more development than most of its inhabitants.

But as it stands Elio is a very strong addition to Pixar’s library, it’s touching, heartwarming and such a sweet film that you can’t help but smile after watching.

Elio is available on all VOD platforms.

8/10 B+

Lilo & Stitch (2025) Film Review

Stitch, an extraterrestrial entity, comes to Earth after escaping prison, where he tries to impersonate a dog. Things take a turn when a lonely Hawaiian girl, Lilo, adopts him from an animal shelter and he helps mend her broken family.

Lilo & Stitch is directed by Dean Fleischer Camp who previously directed Marcel The Shell With Shoes On (2021). The film serves as a remake to the 2002 film of the same name.

Lilo & Stitch might be the better than Snow White when it comes to Disney live action remakes that came out this year, but is that really worth celebrating? I will admit that there’s parts of Lilo & Stitch that work well enough, but much like a lot of these other live action remakes the end result is complete inferior versions of the original.

As far as the cast goes seeing Chris Sanders return as the voice for Stitch is great, he does a great job here and his connection with Maia Kealoha is easily some of the movie’s best moments. Speaking of which Maia Kealoha absolutely carries this movie, she captures the spirit of Lilo from the original and has a lot of sweet moments. You can easily tell there was so much charm that went into her performance and she was able to bring that to the viewer front and center, if it hadn’t been for Kealoha and Sanders this remake would fall flat almost immediately at the start. The rest of the cast are fine enough, Billy Magnussen as Pleakley has some good moments but that’s really about it, a lot of the other characters such as Jumba just don’t have the charm or energy of what made them so great in the original. A lot of the character writing here felt very half baked and severe lack of passion, which is incredibly unfortunate.

The writing is strange to say the least, this is an instance where the movie is at its best when it follows the original not when it brings new things into the mix. The character writing is especially noticeably dipped in quality the main offender being the choice to make Jumba a villain, it’s an out of nowhere decision that hurts the movie in the long run. Jumba being a villain takes away a lot of what made his character so great in the original, he doesn’t have that same connection with Stitch, while yes he was technically a “mad scientist” in the original but he was ultimately a goofy guy, the destruction he made was accidental because he was mostly insensitive and mean in this goofy way. Think about it this way, imagine if someone tried to make Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb into a very serious villain. That’s the equivalent of what this movie did here with Jumba. In this movie Jumba is evil for the sake of being evil, he hates everyone, takes away a lot of what made him such a great character.

As far as the ending is concerned it’s a very puzzling decision and really defeats the purpose of the original, not only that but it’s incredibly out of character for Nani. The original had this message of being Ohana which means no one gets left behind, to see a complete whiplash from this movie is bizarre to say the least.

Overall there really isn’t not much else to be said about the live action remake of Lilo & Stitch. It has its moments that capture the original decently well but then you have moments that completely miss what made the original so fun, adventurous and why people love it so much.

Lilo & Stitch is available on all VOD platforms.

4/10 D+

Snow White (2025)

Fleeing from the Evil Queen, Snow White finds refuge with Dopey, Bashful, Grumpy, Sneezy, Happy, Doc and Sleepy. When the palace guards embark on a mission to bring her back, a commoner and his group of woodland bandits band together to protect her.

Snow White is directed by Marc Webb director of (500) Days Of Summer (2009), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), Gifted (2017) and The Only Living Boy in New York (2017). Snow White is a live action remake of the 1937 animated film of the same name.

For a movie that has had so many “controversies” this felt like a huge nothing burger, it’s no secret that most of the live action Disney movies are terrible and Snow White is no exception. Everything terrible that a lot of these live action remakes are guilty of Snow White multiples that by ten.

The one thing I can give this movie is Rachel Zegler, she’s undeniably a great singer and she really works with what she can here. Due to the script she’s unfortunately not able to utilize her full talent, but there are a few moments during the songs where I was actually impressed. She’s the only one here that walks out of it who leaves a great impression, everyone else is either forgettable or flat out terrible. Zegler absolutely deserved a far better script and movie in general.

Gal Gadot is terrible there’s just no other way to describe her performance, look the Evil Queen was not exactly a deep character but Gadot is still horribly miscast, her singing pales in comparison to Zegler’s and she does not add anything to the character. There’s even times where it almost feels like she’s acting like she’s in a completely different movie, it’s a completely bizarre performance that truly feels empty.

The movie itself is just not appealing to look at either, between the bland CGI and the horrifying CG dwarfs that are nightmare fuel (not in a good or fun way) it’s an absolute pain to watch due to how lifeless it all looks. The sense of wonder and magic of the original film is not present here at all, it’s replaced with a bland and terrible style that completely defeats the purpose of the whimsical feel of the story.

The writing is terrible, the dwarfs who in the original film were charming and fun crack unfunny jokes here and have very little going for them. Andrew Burnap who plays a new character named Jonathan (partially based on the Prince in the original film) is about as bland as you can get when it comes to love interests, he doesn’t give a terrible performance but it’s most certainly one that does not leave a lasting impression. Even Snow White as a character really does not get a whole lot of interesting developments, as I said earlier Rachel Zegler tries her hardest to make it work but in the end very little comes together.

Overall there really is not a whole lot to Snow White it’s a terrible version of the 1937 original, it’s truly one of the laziest of the live action Disney films. It fails to do anything interesting with the story and instead focuses on terrible decisions that ultimately cost the movie.

Snow White is available on all VOD platforms.

3/10 D-

Inside Out 2 (2024) Film Review

Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust have been running a successful operation by all accounts. However, when Anxiety shows up, they aren’t sure how to feel.

Inside Out 2 is directed by Kelsey Mann which is directorial debut. Inside Out 2 is the sequel to Inside Out (2015).

Inside Out 2 was always going to happen at some point, the first film was met with immediate love both critically and financially. It’s become a huge favorite among Pixar fans and while it might not be one of my absolute favorites of Pixar I still really do like the film. I think the same can be really said for Inside Out 2.

Inside Out 2 is quite similar to the first film and the plot is very similar which is not too much of a problem since the movie itself is very charming and endearing, however there are times where it’s a bit frustrating to see it keep things a bit too safe. Plus the movie doesn’t quite have the emotional punch that the first movie had. Having that said the positives really outweigh the negatives so let’s get into those.

The cast is great and the characters are just as fun as they were in the first film, Maya Hawke plays a new character Anxiety who steals the show. Maya Hawke absolutely nails it here and completely captures the character, Anxiety plays a lot like Joy did in the first film but luckily the chemistry between the two characters is quite fun so it doesn’t leave the viewer feeling bored or that they have seen this before.

The animation is beautifully done and adds a lot of attention to detail, the scenes with Riley are touching and have the awkward situations you would expect, there’s some strong emotional moments here that makes the viewer fall in love with these characters all over again. I also do think it’s clever they added emotions mainly due to Riley going through puberty which is a theme in this film change and how to go through it or embrace it. Really nice messages here that are absolutely relatable to a lot of people.

Overall Inside Out 2 is quite great, i definitely think if they are going to continue with a third film they are definitely going to have to step it up and not make it another “Joy and other emotions get separated from the headquarters” but the film is charming, has a strong message and is crafted incredibly well.

Inside Out 2 is available on all VOD platforms.

8/10 B+

The Little Mermaid (2023) is a fun remake with a strong performance from Halle Bailey!

The youngest of King Triton’s daughters, Ariel is a beautiful and spirited young mermaid with a thirst for adventure. Longing to find out more about the world beyond the sea, Ariel visits the surface and falls for the dashing Prince Eric. Following her heart, she makes a deal with the evil sea witch, Ursula, to experience life on land.

I’m going to skip over the whole conversation about Disney’s Live Action Remakes since I already briefly talked about it in my Peter Pan & Wendy review last month, anyway The Little Mermaid had me a bit worried. When the trailer dropped myself and a few others said that Halle Bailey would be the standout but mostly everything else would fall flat, it’s a common pattern that happens with a lot of these live action remakes. However as I said before in my reviews I like to be proven wrong when it comes to film and to my surprise…The Little Mermaid did just that.

The Little Mermaid is very flawed, the underwater parts don’t exactly look all that great as there are moments where the CGI is very noticeable. Javier Bardem gives a pretty poor performance as King Triton, Jacob Tremblay as Flounder is a very lifeless performance and Awkwafina as Scuttle is yet another addition to her bad performances post The Farewell. I’m not going to on a huge rant about the rap Awkwafina sings in the movie. I really don’t have that much to say about it, it’s bad of course but it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever heard. To be quite honest I found it more unnecessary and very unfitting than bad, it comes right out of nowhere and ends shortly after and is never spoken of again.

Now moving on to what really worked for the movie, let’s start with of course Halle Bailey who was the standout. Her film career is going to go very far and it really shows here, she captures the spirit of Ariel while bringing her own direction to the character, her acting really shines through when the film goes to the land portion of the film. Her screen presence is genuinely charming and she naturally connects with the rest of the cast, even if I didn’t like some of the other performances such as Awkwafina or Tremblay there is absolutely no denying that she connects with them easily.

Daveed Diggs as Sebastian took me a little bit to get used to, but he really did a great job. His version of Under The Sea is a whole lot of fun and he really does capture the character quite well, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula was also pretty solid obviously there is no topping Pat Carroll (voiced Ursula in the original) who delivered one of my favorite performances of all time. With that said I do think McCarthy did a pretty good job with what she was given, absolutely far better than some other depictions of iconic Disney villains (looking at you Jafar from Aladdin (2019). Finally there’s Art Malik who plays Grimsby, he’s genuinely fun and is just a very charming character. He’s a prime example of a fun side character that gets the job done quite well.

The music was surprisingly pretty great, I say surprisingly because yes while Rob Marshall director of Chicago (one of my favorite films) is in the director’s chair. This is Disney we are talking about, the music in these live action remakes have always been a hit or miss or some movies will have a few good songs and the rest would just be very forgettable. However that wasn’t the case here with The Little Mermaid, minus the previously mentioned rap. The rest of the songs are pretty well done renditions of the original songs, Under The Sea is a lot of fun, Kiss The Girl is one of the film’s highlights and Part Of Your World is truly fantastic due to Halle Bailey’s powerful singing voice. Which is why the music works so well the singing voices are truly great especially Halle Bailey who as I said before has a tremendous singing voice.

Lastly there’s Rob Marshall’s direction, his approach of “if it isn’t broken don’t fix it” is truly effective here, especially in terms of story. Rob Marshall’s touches on the music is absolutely felt here and he really does a fantastic job of connecting the cast to one another, there’s some genuinely well done moments of chemistry between Halle Bailey and Jonah Hauer-King.

Overall The Little Mermaid (2023) is quite solid, it’s definitely flawed but it’s a genuinely fun little film that manages to be a lot better than a lot of the other live action remakes.

The Little Mermaid is currently in theaters.

7/10 B

Crater is a coming of age movie but in space.

Caleb Channing is about to be relocated to an idyllic faraway planet following his father’s death. To fulfill his dad’s last wish before leaving, he and his three best friends hijack a rover to explore a mysterious crater.

Crater is yet another Disney+ Original Movie that a had a humongous amount of potential but falls very short when the movie tries to execute it’s themes.

Crater has decent enough act the standout is McKenna Grace who gives a strong performance that has some character moments that help develop her character, Kid Cudi is pretty fun but there is honestly not a whole lot to say about him here.

The main problems here are mostly the writing and world building, the writing leaves a lot more to be desired with character moments that are completely missing. Sure we are given some information about the characters but not enough to the point where the viewer will care about them, the world building is very poorly explained as well as having way too many scenes that spill out exposition for long periods of time.

What’s frustrating is Crater does wrap up pretty nicely, there’s some beautiful and emotional scenes during the final moments of the movie that actually could pull your heartstrings. But due to the very bumpy road to get to that point it really holds Crater back from being a decent movie.

Crater can be summed up as a coming of age movie but in space that has a lot of failed potential, there’s a good movie in here somewhere it’s just not showing up unfortunately.

Crater is available on Disney+

4/10 D+

Peter Pan & Wendy is yet another forgettable Disney live action remake.

Wendy Darling, a young girl looking to avoid boarding school, meets Peter Pan, a boy who refuses to grow up. Wendy, her brothers, and Tinker Bell travel with Peter to the magical world of Neverland, where she encounters an evil pirate captain.

I’ve shared my thoughts on the whole Disney live action remake thing that Disney has been doing the last several years, while there are some that are genuinely good (Jungle Book, Pete’s Dragon Cinderella, Christopher Robin and Cruella) a majority of them are just not good and serve the purpose of being made for a quick buck. Peter Pan & Wendy I was hoping would be decent enough since David Lowery did a very solid job with Pete’s Dragon (which honestly could be argued that it’s better than the original), while you do feel Lowery’s direction here it’s nowhere near as strong as it was in Pete’s Dragon.

There is actually handful of things to like here, most notably some of the performances and the filming, David Lowery does what he does best and makes the film very stunning, while Neverland can be dark a lot of the time it does make that up with some quite strong visuals and beautiful shots. The performances that standout here is Jude Law as Hook, Ever Gabo Anderson as Wendy and Alyssa Wapanatahk as Tiger Lily

Jude Law really sells it as Hook he can be intimidating but also be goofy which actually does a pretty solid job of capturing the character, he honestly seemed like he was having an absolute blast playing Hook so that probably helps as well. Alyssa Wapantahk does a pretty solid job as Tiger Lily, while it’s not a performance to write home about she does a very decent job of capturing the character. Finally there’s Ever Gabo Anderson who’s definitely going to be a future star, she does really good job capturing the character of Wendy and ends up having some of the best scenes of the movie.

Where Peter Pan & Wendy falls short is memorability there’s a lot of scenes here that don’t really have anything of note going on, Alexander Molony is just not a very good Peter Pan, while he isn’t flat out bad he doesn’t really bring anything new to the character. His performance is more dull than anything else and technically gets the job done but that doesn’t make it good.

It’s also quite clear when the direction of the movie seems very lost, I hinted at earlier at that while there are some very beautiful shots here Neverland is still very dark and dreary, I’m not exactly sure what is making recent Peter Pan adaptions have this idea that Neverland was a depressing place, Neverland is an adventurous, lively and whimsical place where you never grow up. Although I will give credit Neverland does look far better here than it did in Pan (2015), at least with this movie you have Lowery’s direction and style.

Overall Peter Pan & Wendy isn’t something I would call bad, it just has a lot of flaws that sadly stack up and ultimately hold this movie back. It’s far better than a lot of the recent Disney live action remakes and it’s a huge improvement over Pan (2015) (then again that’s not exactly hard when you have a scene where the pirates randomly start singing Nirvana’s It Smells Like Teen Spirit).

Peter Pan & Wendy is available on Disney+

5/10 C

Beauty and the Beast 30th Celebration is half a movie.

In honour of the 30th anniversary of the animated classic, the cast and crew put on a blended special showcase of “Beauty and the Beast”, along with new musical performances, sets and costumes inspired by the classic story.

I was debating on whether or not to give the Beauty and the Beast 30th celebration but decided to since I love the original film so much, anyway this celebration isn’t exactly good. H.E.R. has her debut acting role here and she does quite a great job as Belle, her performance isn’t anything groundbreaking but she does capture some of the charm of the movie and makes it her own, Josh Groban has the excellent voice to back him up from the terrible Beast costume, Martin Short is fun as always, the songs are pretty great and stay quite true to the original movie. All the classics are here from Beauty and the Beast, to The Mob Song, Something There and heck even Evermore is here that one song that completely stole the show from the 2017 live action version that’s really neat! Everything else however is pretty rough, for starters I’m not entirely sure why they weren’t committed to making this into a complete live action stage show, half of the movie is just scenes from the animated film. We miss out on a lot of moments that I’m sure the cast would have nailed had they been given the opportunity, it’s just sort of that moment where if I wanted to watch the animated film I would put on the animated film. It’s nice to see Rita Moreno here and she tells a little history about Beauty and the Beast however all of it is common knowledge that can be easily looked up with Wikipedia articles, the storyboard art was at least pretty interesting and not something you see everyday. As for the rest it plays out the story we all know and love, I wouldn’t say this was bad but this was a very lacking 30th celebration that could have went a lot harder.

Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration is available on Disney+

5/10 C

Disenchanted loses the magic of the first film.

Years after her happily ever after, Giselle, Robert and Morgan move to a new community and Andalasia and the real world are thrown off-balance.

Disenchanted is the long awaited sequel of 2007’s Enchanted a film that quickly gained a relatively big following including myself. Enchanted was genuinely really fun film filled with a lot of heart, passion, character and had a huge identity to it. It’s been one of those films where people have wanted a sequel for a long time, Disenchanted is the end result and they completely dropped the ball here. What’s sad is there just isn’t a whole lot to say about Disenchanted as it’s a forgettable movie that completely takes out all of the magic that made Enchanted so great. The positives come from Amy Adams who returns as Giselle, she’s clearly putting her heart into it and actually sings a lot of the songs very well, Idina Menzel is actually not bad here either a song she sings towards the end “Love Power” is actually quite great and beautifully sung. James Marsden who just isn’t given enough screen time here is truly charming and actually gives all the moments that made me laugh, you can’t help but smile whenever he’s on screen which is sadly just not enough. Everything else here is about as generic as you can get between a very typical disgruntled child or teen storyline that ends with learning a lesson, which really has the energy of something from the Disney channel in the early 90s it’s truly a huge missed opportunity to look at Morgan’s (played by Gabriella Baldacchino) character and her relationship with her mother Giselle in a way that could connect with the audience. But they just settled with the most generic way possible that is way too forgettable, Disenchanted is a frustrating movie because this is most definitely something you can make into a great movie, but the forgettable script, a lot of the basic original songs and the storytelling is severely lacking and loses the magic of the original.

Disenchanted is available on Disney+

4/10 D+

Lightyear is a decent enough adventure that could have went further.

Legendary space ranger Buzz Lightyear embarks on an intergalactic adventure alongside ambitious recruits Izzy, Mo, Darby, and his robot companion, Sox.

Lightyear is Pixar’s newest film which the whole idea of the movie is it is about who the toy Buzz Lightyear from the Toy Story films is based on. An idea that sadly doesn’t get fully utilized, but let’s go over the positives first. First off the animation is stunning, it compliments the whole space theme really well and is the very definition of having a sci-fi feel. The voice acting all around was really strong as well, particularly Keke Palmer, Chris Evans, Uzo Aduba and Peter Sohn. Speaking of which Sox the cat is hands down the best animal sidekick in recent memory, usually I’m not a fan of the usual modern Disney sidekick who’s just there for selling toys and making unfunny jokes. But Sox was a genuinely fun character who had a lot of charm and feels a lot more than a dollar sign, the first half of Lightyear felt a lot like what you would expect from Pixar…the first 30 minutes to be exact. There’s some genuinely touching scenes with a lot of emotions mixed in that really paint an interesting story about blaming yourself and trying to do everything you can to fix a situation. The major problem with Lightyear is what follows after that, the movie quickly becomes a very generic sci-fi story filled to the brim with cliches. A huge part of this is what they decided to do with Zurg, which was a very puzzling choice that really did not add much to the movie. There are some decent bits here and there in the second half, but it’s not enough to put this movie back to where it was in the first half. It’s a lot of sci-fi elements that don’t blend together very well. Overall Lightyear is definitely not a bad film (far from it) it just could have taken it’s ideas from the first half of the movie and pushed them even further.

Lightyear is now in theaters.

7/10 B