Pixar scores a modest marvel in romantic, opposites-attract comical fantasy 'Elemental'

“Elemental” - ★ ★ ★

Charming.

Delightful.

Spectacularly stunning.

“Elemental” clearly belongs on Pixar's periodic table of animated features, right down to the bubbling chemistry between its two romantic leads and comic wit embedded in both words and visuals.

Still, something feels missing from Pixar's high-concept 27th movie - a bold and memorable sense of originality.

Just as the third entertaining “Back to the Future” film failed to capture the edgy magic of its two predecessors, the engaging “Elemental” comes up a few creative atoms short of Pixar's masterworks, such as “Inside Out,” “Ratatouille” and “WALL-E.” This despite a pricey $200 million budget.

“Elemental” creator and director Peter Sohn used his own Korean immigrant parents and his marriage to a non-Korean wife as inspirations for the dramatic conflicts in this fantastical romance between two opposites: a fired-up female named Ember Lumen and a waterlogged male named Wade Ripple.

They live in a melting-pot community (based on New York City's highly diverse neighborhoods) where anthropomorphized characters based on Wind, Earth, Fire and Water live and work in relative harmony - with an occasional cultural clash or two.

Ember (voiced by Leah Lewis) blazes through the movie as the dominant character, the daughter of an immigrant couple, Bernie Lumen (Ronnie Del Carmen) and his wife, Cinder (Shila Ommi), who have left their home country of Fireland to give a better life to their daughter.

Her cute little flame nose flickers with fun. Like the emo-character Anger in “Inside Out,” Ember is a hothead with a short fuse and an atomic temper.

She meets the amorphously watery Wade (voiced by Mamoudou Athie), a real drip who floods her dad's eatery, the Fire Place, with building code violations that threaten to close the business. Call this an acute meet.

Here is where screenwriters John Hoberg, Kat Likkel and Brenda Hsueh (assisted by Sohn) undermine traditional Hollywood ideals of masculinity by creating Wade as an emotional bubble about to burst at any moment. He literally cries a river at the slightest provocation and rejects Stallone/Schwarzenegger bods (which he briefly models for Ember) in favor of a more rounded ultra-dad figure.

Wade has other strengths, one being the calm voice of reason who saves Ember from her own self-destructive impulses and her inability to stand up for her own pursuit of happiness. (No, she does not want to take over the family grocery store as Dad expects.)

With most of its attention devoted to water and fire, “Elemental” relegates air and Earth characters to second-class citizenship.

“The Goldmans” TV series star Wendi McLendon-Covey provides some spunky sportsmanship to Gale Cumulus, an air-eodite cloud who loves sports when she's not working at City Hall administration.

A smarty pants Earth kid named Clod (Mason Wertheimer) lives in the Fire Town neighborhood and spends a lot of time trying to hustle the older Ember into going out with him. (Reportedly, Twitter postings have criticized this as not being funny in today's social climate, a view which ignores that the Left Brain, not social climate, determines what's funny for people.)

“Elemental” tends to whack us on the collective head with a thematic two-by-four, encouraging us to embrace, respect and empathize with immigrants.

But what about Sohn's less obvious use of “Elemental” as a cinematic raspberry blown at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for his anti-immigration policies?

DeSantis and Disney - owner of Florida's Disney World - have been at economic and political loggerheads ever since Mickey's executives spoke out against DeSantis' “Parental Rights in Education” bill (which some opponents have called “Don't Say Gay” law) criminalizing discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in Florida public elementary schools. Plus, Disney World continues to celebrate Gay Pride month.

Can it only be a coincidence that “Elemental” has come along to humanize the immigrant experience as a positive asset for a diverse and thriving culture?

Here's an even bigger question: Since Disney owns both Pixar and Marvel, will Ember ever meet and fall for that old flame, Fantastic Four's Johnny Storm?

Note: A new Pixar animated film short, Bob Peterson's “Carl's Date,” will play before “Elemental.” It's a surprisingly bland short starring Carl (voiced by Ed Asner), the leading character from Pixar's 2009 release “Up,” attempting to go on his first date since the death of his wife, Ellie. “Elemental” director Peter Sohn served as the model for Carl's cute kid sidekick in “Up.”

Starring: Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Ronnie del Carmen, Shila Ommi, Wendi McLendon-Covey

Directed by: Peter Sohn

Other: A Walt Disney Studios release. Rated PG. 103 minutes