Latest Pixar Animation Studios film “Elemental” is an elemental but engaging romance story with enough fun and charming stuffs to enjoy. I wish the film had some more time to explore more of the mood and details of its amusing fantasy world, but it still distinguishes itself to some degree in terms of story and characters, and the result is fairly entertaining on the whole despite being several steps below recent better offerings from Pixar Animation Studios such as “Soul” (2020).

The main background of the story is Elemental City, a big fantasy city whose population consists of the anthropological versions of four different elements of nature: Water, Earth, Air, and Fire. The opening scene shows a young Fire couple arriving at the city as two new immigrants, and the following sequence shows how they have settled in a neighborhood for Fire people during next several years as raising their dear daughter Ember (voiced by Leah Lewis).

Ember’s parents have run a little convenient store which shows some notable Indian cultural influence, and her father has expected her to run this store instead of him someday, though she is not that good at being behind the counter due to her occasional, yes, fiery temper. Nevertheless, she tries to meet her parents’ expectation because she knows well how much her parents have worked hard for giving her a better life, so she tries her best as much as possible anyway.

When her father later allows her to handle the day for a big discount alone, Amber initially thought she is ready for that, but, of course, things soon get out of control for her during the first few minutes of the opening hour. To make matters worse, the old building which has been the place for their home and store comes to have an unexpected plumbing problem, though water is certainly the last thing her and her family and other Fire people need.

As she hurriedly attempts to fix this problem in the basement of the building, Amber happens to encounter a young Water guy named Wade (voiced by Mamoudou Athie), who is literally swept into the basement via its leaky water pipe. This is surely your average awkward Meet Cute moment, but Wade happens to be a city inspector, so he feels obliged to report a number of serious problems besides that leakage problem to his bureau as soon as possible. As he quickly goes back to his bureau for that, Amber naturally follows after him because getting her parents’ shop shut down is the last thing she wants, and, what do you know, she soon finds herself being outside her familiar neighborhood.

During this sequence, the film bounces here and there along with its two very different main characters, and we come to admire more of numerous colorful details of Elemental City. We see a bunch of Air, Water, and Earth people besides some Fire people, and then we observe how these four groups of citizens live along with each other as harmoniously as, say, those animal characters in Oscar-winning animation film “Zootopia” (2016).

Although Wade eventually submits his report despite some interference from Amber, Wade eventually comes to feel sorry for her situation, so he subsequently tries to help her as much as he can. It later turns out that leakage problem is caused by a little crack in the local levee, and it seems that all they will have to do is fixing this crack enough to get the agreement from Wade’s boss.

Meanwhile, as spending more time together, Amber and Wade start to feel some mutual feelings between them, though they still hesitate to touch each other for good reasons. After all, Amber’s parents do not like Water people for understandable reasons, and Amber also becomes quite conflicted when she gets an unexpected opportunity for her artistic talent via Wade’s affluent family, who wholeheartedly welcome her when Wade later takes her to a little evening family meeting of theirs.

If you have seen many other romantic comedy films about supposedly mismatched pairs, you will surely know how the story will end from the beginning, but the film continues to hold our attention via enough style and substance. Besides steadily providing one wonderful visual moment after another (I especially like the underwater sequence involved with a certain special flower), the film also works as a fable version of immigrant story, and that aspect is frequently accentuated by Thomas Newman’s score, which freely peppers the soundtrack with several different Asian touches.

Most of the voice cast members are relatively unknown to many of us, but they are all solid as having a fun with their respective roles. While Leah Lewis, who was the lead actress of Netflix film “The Half of It” (2020), brings lots of spirit and charm into her character, Mamoudou Athie, who has steadily shown more potential since I noticed him in other Netflix film “Uncorked” (2020), flexibly balances his character between comedy and drama, and their good chemistry is one of several reasons why the movie works despite often being generic and conventional. In case of several other substantial voice cast members in the film, Ronnie del Carmen and Shila Ommi are effective as Amber’s parents, and Wendi McLendon-Covey and Catherine O’Hara provide some good laughs via their respective colorful supporting characters.

“Elemental” is directed by Peter Sohn, who previously made “The Good Dinosaur” (2015). Compared to that rather flawed Pixar Animation Studios film, “Elemental” is certainly a better work with some sincerity and creativity to be appreciated, and, though it does not reach to the greatness of “Wall-E” (2008) or “Inside Out” (2015), I will watch it again instead of enduring “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (2023) again. Yes, the folks of Pixar Animation Studios could do better, but the film shows that they still can entertain us even at the most element level.

Sidenote: The movie preceded by short animation film “Carl’s Date”, a little comic tale involved with the old hero of “Up” (2009).