“Elio,” a Walt Disney Company release in theaters Friday, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association for “thematic elements, some action and peril.” Running time. 99 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

By Danielle Broadway LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Zoe Saldana feels like her new film "Elio," from Walt Disney's Pixar Animation Studios, is a story about the imperfect journey that parents and their children go through.

Directed with vigor and dashes of humor and emotion by Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi (“Turning Red”) and Adrian Molina (co-director of “Coco”), “Elio” is laden with Easter eggs and has a killer end-credit bonus scene and pays snappy homage to numerous sci-fi films (“Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” amongst others).