Elio” isn’t up there with the animation house’s finest work — the glory days have been over for some time now — but it’s a fine, fizzy piece of family entertainment, overfamiliar in spots (if a story about multiple species of extraterrestrials can be called familiar) but just as overeager to please.

Pixar trades soul-searching for star-seeking in its most whimsical — and least self-serious — original cartoon in over a decade.

Elio is an agreeable junior space odyssey that’s a safe bet for families in the run-up to the summer holidays, even if it’s not destined to be a Pixar film for the ages. You can pick all sorts of holes in it here and there – a game for restless adults,