Zoe Saldaña and Brad Garrett are among the voice cast for the animated feature about a young boy who, feeling out of place on Earth, dreams of getting abducted by aliens.

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).

It has a universal and powerful theme that drives the story (examining what it means to feel alone); it has spunky and memorable protagonists and antagonists; and while the animation style isn’t anything one would think of as revolutionary,