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-

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip (2025) Film Review

Young Alexander Garcia thinks he has the worst luck in the world. When his multigenerational Mexican-American family sets off on a road trip to California, he’s pretty sure disaster lurks around every corner.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip is directed by Marvin Lemus which is his directorial debut. The film is a standalone sequel to the 2014 film Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

This movie is a prime example of the classic streaming movie strategy, take a movie that was decently popular when it first came out but over the years has been mostly forgotten about and give it a sequel. I’m not going to sit here and say that Very Bad Day was a great film, it was a very typical family comedy movie but at the very least it had it’s charm mainly from Steve Carrell and the rest of the cast.

Very Bad Road Trip however does not have a whole lot going on here, it’s a movie that tries to recapture some of the fun beats from the previous movie. I will say that this movie at times has some cultural exploration that I do have to give the movie some credit for at least trying (even if it’s very bare bones.) But that’s not quite enough to really justify the end result of the movie and ultimately will leave audiences flipping through the Disney+ catalog on what to watch next making this one forgettable.

The acting here is fine, it gets the job done Cheech Martin I guess is the standout here. But the acting and delivery is more of the fault of the script than anything else, the humor outside of a few chuckle worthy scenes really falls flat. There’s just not a whole lot of material here that’s very interesting or even that funny to really move the story along, it’s not that anything here is necessarily terrible it’s that the movie has the feel of a family comedy streaming movie that has little going for it.

I can see what they were trying to do with the cultural exploration, heck when the movie focuses on that it’s a bit more of an interesting movie and a little more than just a family road trip comedy movie. But unfortunately those moments are not quite strong enough due to the movie’s humor and lack of real meat to the theme, I’m not asking for a full in depth exploration. But something with a little more substance would have been a bit more investing for the viewer.

Overall there really is not a whole lot to comment on with Very Bad Road Trip you could have done so much worse, but this honestly just feels like the bare minimum and nothing more than release date fodder. Kids may like this one, but everyone else will forget it in less than 10 minutes after watching.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip is available on Disney+

4/10 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+

Young Woman and the Sea (2024) Film Review

Through the steadfast support of her older sister and trainers, Trudy Ederle overcomes adversity and the animosity of a patriarchal society to rise through the ranks of the Olympic swimming team and complete a 21-mile trek from France to England.

Young Woman and the Sea is directed by Joachim Rønning director of Bandidas (2006), Max Manus: Man Of War (2008), Kon-Tiki (2012), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) and Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil (2019).

Young Woman and the Sea actually caught me by surprise, going into it I was expecting a very typical biopic that I would forget about as soon as I finished watching it. While the film does have its bumps in the road and some parts are undeniably typical biopic elements, most of the film works quite well and is admittedly a very strong crowd pleaser.

Daisy Ridley is the one who makes this film work, her performance as Gertrude Ederle an American competitive swimmer who became the first woman to swim across the English Channel is a very inspiring one. Ridley balances some humor and dramatic moments to even her performance out which very quickly connects her to the viewer. Her interactions with the rest of the cast is also very touching as well Stephen Graham, Sian Clifford and Tilda Cobham-Hervey are all excellent here and give such beautiful performances that have this raw feel.

A theme in this film is sisterhood, some of the film’s best moments is the bond between Trudy and Margaret (played by Tilda Cobham-Hervey) we get to see a beautiful bond between sisters and how much they mean towards one another, it’s something that any viewer can easily connect with especially if you have siblings and I do think this film does show the importance of siblings bonding with one another.

One thing that is very quickly noticeable here is Joachim Rønning’s direction being so much better than the couple films. His direction here is easily the best of his Disney outings which in turn makes this film feel very reminiscent of those sports films Disney used to release years ago, which is very welcoming I must say. The filming and score are also quite beautiful as well, there’s some really beautiful shots here that honestly took me by surprise.

Overall Young Woman and the Sea is a classic crowd pleaser, it runs for a bit too long and does have some of the typical biopic elements. But that doesn’t stop the film from being incredibly solid, it’s a very inspirational film that definitely had a lot of heart put into it.

Young Woman and the Sea is available on Disney+

8/10 B+

Echo (2024) Series Review

Maya Lopez’s ruthless behavior in New York City catches up with her in her hometown; she must face her past, reconnect with her Native American roots and embrace the meaning of family and community.

Echo is a new installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s the tenth Disney+ MCU series and serves as a spinoff to Hawkeye (2021).

I’m one of those few people who enjoyed Hawkeye decently enough, my opinions on it have changed since then and I don’t think it’s quite the 9/10 series I was making it out to be, but I still think it was solid enough and worked mostly due to the performances. While I did enjoy Echo as a character in Hawkeye I always thought making a series about her was very out of nowhere, but that’s not to say there wasn’t any potential.

Because there are are some decent parts to the series, for one thing the acting is honestly pretty solid. Alaqua Cox gives a solid performance as Maya Lopez her interactions with the other characters are genuinely touching at times the moments with her and Vincent D’Onofrio are among some of the best moments. The two really do a great job of creating tension, speaking of which Vincent D’Onofrio once again does a fantastic job as The Kingpin, although he’s only in the series for a few episodes every time he appears on screen he knocks it out of the park. It really does get you excited to see the future of where he is going to take this character.

There are also some solid sequences that are genuinely touching as well (particularly in Episode 3), they is definitely an attempt to make these moments standout among the overall amount in any MCU Disney+ series and I think this series does an okay job with that.

That’s where it ends for me however because there are way too many missteps that can’t be ignored. For one thing the series is 5 episodes long, meaning character moments, the writing and the build up to the final episode all move at a very fast pace that ends up getting very sloppy which again is frustrating because there was some level of attempt to create something interesting narratively.

The other problem is the power switch, a choice that that does not make any sense at all narratively and doesn’t fit with the source material. This happened once before with Mrs. Marvel which while that decision was also quite bad at the very least the series was still entertaining, Echo is unfortunately not very entertaining and is quite dialogue heavy which would be fine if it were at least compelling. But that’s not the case here, as I said the fast paced really rushed moments that would otherwise be very important for the characters making for a very weak payoff.

Finally as a series I really don’t think it succeeds with making Echo an interesting character, sure we are given details about her native roots but we aren’t shown a whole lot of it. And I hate repeating myself here but the pacing completely destroys her character moments, it’s all rushed and sloppily put together to make a very disappointing final episode that isn’t quite on the same level as embarrassing as the one in Secret Invasion (2023) but it falls very flat unfortunately.

Overall Echo had a lot of potential, it had the right ingredients just the wrong way to fully execute them. Which is a common problem with a lot of these MCU shows and is probably only going to get worse.

Echo is available on Disney+

4/10 D+

Dashing Through The Snow (2023)

After a traumatic experience, Eddie Garrick, a social worker, no longer believes in the magic of Christmas. At the request of his estranged wife, he brings his daughter Charlotte to work where a magical adventure begins for them.

There really isn’t a whole lot to say about Tim Story’s latest movie Dashing Through The Snow. It’s the very definition of a forgettable Christmas movie that just sort of exists and has a lot of the exact same problems a lot of modern Christmas movies do. Which mostly consists of slapping a few familiar faces on the movie and not really care about anything else.

It’s nice to see Ludacris attempt to branch out in different roles other then the Fast and Furious series, however that really doesn’t mean all that much when the writing is painfully dull and really does not have the Christmas spirit at all. Lil Rel Howery Santa could have worked if the material was actually funny, he tries his best with what he’s given but it’s nowhere near enough to save this movie from being a chore to sit through.

That’s perhaps the biggest problem here, Dashing Through The Snow feels like a very long chore to finish with no actual reward at the end, the characters are very underdeveloped and the journey they go on is just not very interesting at all. I’ll give the movie some points for it’s cast, despite not giving great performances there were some heartfelt moments during the third act that did work. Unfortunately by then it’s too little too late and we have pointless villain subplot (they could have easily went without a villain.)

Dashing Through The Snow is available on Disney+

3/10 D-

Elemental has charm but is lacking in making it’s ideas stronger.

In a city where fire, water, land, and air residents live together, a fiery young woman and a go-with-the-flow guy discover something elemental: how much they actually have in common.

Well Elemental was definitely an improvement from Peter Sohn’s previous Pixar movie The Good Dinosaur, a few almost immediate noticeable changes are that Elemental is at least trying to tell a story that is a bit more layered (keyword being try which I’ll get to) and the characters are far more interestingly designed as well as being actually written a bit better as well.

The voice acting wasn’t too bad here, granted nobody really hits it out of the park but at least the character models really reflect on the emotions of the cast. The character models despite being mostly very common fire and water elements you see in a lot of different types of media, are still interesting to look at. They have tons of emotions and the characters do have some spots where the writing does make them very likable to the viewer. The music and animation are very well done and during scenes actually can get the viewer emotional, there’s some really strong scenes here with such great voice acting combined with the music that really does feel like Pixar at their best.

Honestly the main problem comes down to the writing, while it’s not anything bad and while I do respect Elemental for trying to go for a more layered story it ultimately doesn’t fully come together as it starts to repeat plots from other movies that have done them far better. First we get an immigrant story setup which really ends up mattering less and less as the story goes on, then we get a follow your dreams long story short these plots don’t mesh well together and really don’t say anything new or aren’t done in a fresh way to get the viewer fully on board.

Despite that however I don’t think Elemental is a bad movie, it’s definitely a harmless movie that I think younger audiences will love and there is a lot of charm here. It just could have been written in a much stronger way to fully execute it’s ideas.

Elemental is available on all VOD platforms.

6/10 C+

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