Thoughts on Elemental? (Keep it spoiler free)

Some critics like James Berardinelli liked it, sounds like it's up my alley but not something that screams "must see in theaters".

Depends what you mean "spiritual successor" of the film. Do I think it's a masterpiece like Inside Out? (Its my favorite pixar movie at the moment) Nah but honestly, it was better than what was shown in the trailers (best way to describe it: It's similar to Turning Red where the trailers weren't that good but when the movie dropped on Disney Plus. It was way better.) but it does have a Inside Out vibe (plus a bit of Turning Red) so if you like either of those movies you might like it 

The film is a hard pass for me.

I really liked the concept art for the film but the final results...I just don't like how it looks. The story also doesn't interests me at all.

Seems like this is going to be the movie that makes or breaks Pixar, and by the looks of things it's most definitely breaking them.

I don't really see how it would "break" them, it's getting pretty good reviews for the most part.

Yeah but it's not Cars 2 low.

 The Pixar name has too much of a legacy behind it for Disney to ever truly get rid of them, they already got bad press for firing the woman who saved Toy Story 2 from being lost forever, if they got rid of Pixar the bad press Disney would get is astronomical. Besides they've got Toy Story 5 coming up and that's guaranteed to print money.