With the global success of franchises such as Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, it’s no wonder dear old Walt got his chequebook out (no doubt one with a different Disney character on every cheque) and bought out independent animation studio Pixar in 2006 for a cool $7.4 billion.

But it’s not easy to sustain that level of success, even if you are owned by the House of Mouse, with Pixar producing a surprising number of very average titles in recent years, including Inside Out, Coco and Soul.

They’re attempting to re-ignite their creative juices with this their latest offering.

When a terrible storm forces them out of their own home, fire elements Bernie (Ronnie Del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi) find themselves having to move far away and start again, in Element City.

It’s a city where the other elements thrive, but it’s taken a while for the fire community to build their own neighbourhood, with the pair setting up their own shop, The Fireplace.

Soon after getting settled they have a daughter, Ember (Leah Lewis), who is brought up working in the shop, getting very hands on, so much so that her dad promises her that the shop will eventually be hers. She has to keep her hot temper in check for that to happen though.

One day the shop suffers from a leak in the basement, which gets worse from Ember losing her temper, which starts to flood the shop out. And out of the pipes pops Wade (Mamoudou Athie), a water element, who just so happens to be an inspector for the city, and has to give the shop a bad grade.

But when he hears Ember’s back story, he feels bad, and tries his best to help them out. But can two different element types, that are complete opposites, get along long enough to save the family business?

So it’s not long into this film that it becomes apparent that it’s fallen into the same trap of the other recent Pixar titles; it’s yet another example of the concept being king, sadly at the expense of an engaging story and characters.

It has the best of intentions, in highlighting not only the plight of immigrants, but also that despite our differences, we can all get along. However, the approach they’ve taken here is the equivalent to the Sesame Street method of storytelling; it’s outrageously obvious, and is base level stuff, to the point where even Elmo might ask why it’s so simplistic.

It comes across as a first thought, which never evolves beyond that. The pitch meeting probably went something like this – so there’s this female flame, and she ends up hanging out with a male body of water, and, well, you’ll never guess, but they fall in love.

It really doesn’t develop beyond that, and despite the film being called Elemental, other characters made of earth and full of wind are introduced in such a secondary, cursory fashion, as if to only give a little weight to the title itself.

Much of this could be forgiven if the characters delivered, which they don’t on any level. They lack any real personality, relying on generic traits you would expect from characters made from fire and water; that said Wade is has a tendency to cry a lot, because you know, he’s made of water. And that’s as sophisticated as the film gets.

It’s also a surprise that the film has no real recognisable names, which is highly unusual for an animated film, and although they are all perfectly acceptable – but certainly no more than that- it does highlight how important casting is for animated characters; just think about Woody from Toy Story for example, and how important Tom Hanks is to injecting an abundance of personality into the role, which is something sorely lacking here.

It’s yet another example then of Pixar losing their way, as they continue to push concept over an original story.

There’s no denying it looks good, but you would hope so with Pixar’s track record, but for the same reason you would also expect more on the storytelling front which is currently a real struggle for them.

If they want a return to their glory days, then at some point they’re going to have to face the facts and go back to the basics, it’s that simple.