Onward
Year: 2020
Director: Dan Scanlon
Starring: Tom Holland, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Chris Pratt & Octavia Spencer
Runtime: 102 mins
BBFC: U
Published: 08/05/23
Director: Dan Scanlon
Starring: Tom Holland, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Chris Pratt & Octavia Spencer
Runtime: 102 mins
BBFC: U
Published: 08/05/23
Whilst most animation studios default to the fantasy genre for their animated films as tales of magical lands, epic quests, and dragons is all easy stuff to sell to families for some guaranteed fun. Pixar meanwhile have mostly avoided touching fantasy, perhaps in an attempt to distance themselves from their Disney overlords.
Their first foray into the genre with 2012’s Brave was met with a positive reception and proved that even Pixar could take tired tropes and make something special from them. But what if Pixar made a world where magic was forgotten, once the lifeblood of civilisation but now little more than a game for children; and most importantly, could Pixar weave their signature deeply personal storylines into that world? The answer is unfortunately a hesitant kind of.
Ian’s (Tom Holland) father died before he was born, and every day he wishes more than anything that he could have met him and known more about him. He’s a nervous introvert who is more worried about creating a plan for everything than actually carrying that plan out.
His older brother, Barley (Chris Pratt), does remember their father, though only fleetingly. Unlike Ian, Barley prefers not to think before he acts, and is utterly engrossed in his board game that concerns magical realms, quests, and ancient treasures.
When Ian turns sixteen, he is given a gift from his late father, a wizards staff and a spell to resurrect him for a single day. But when the spell goes wrong and only their dad’s legs appear, Ian turns to Barley for help in uncovering the lost magic of their world in search of a gem that will complete the spell.
Their first foray into the genre with 2012’s Brave was met with a positive reception and proved that even Pixar could take tired tropes and make something special from them. But what if Pixar made a world where magic was forgotten, once the lifeblood of civilisation but now little more than a game for children; and most importantly, could Pixar weave their signature deeply personal storylines into that world? The answer is unfortunately a hesitant kind of.
Ian’s (Tom Holland) father died before he was born, and every day he wishes more than anything that he could have met him and known more about him. He’s a nervous introvert who is more worried about creating a plan for everything than actually carrying that plan out.
His older brother, Barley (Chris Pratt), does remember their father, though only fleetingly. Unlike Ian, Barley prefers not to think before he acts, and is utterly engrossed in his board game that concerns magical realms, quests, and ancient treasures.
When Ian turns sixteen, he is given a gift from his late father, a wizards staff and a spell to resurrect him for a single day. But when the spell goes wrong and only their dad’s legs appear, Ian turns to Barley for help in uncovering the lost magic of their world in search of a gem that will complete the spell.
The problem with Onward is that the story it’s trying to tell of brotherly love and dealing with the death of a parent just doesn’t fit very well within the framework of a Dungeons and Dragons style quest. It’s one of the only Pixar films where tonally it’s not really sure where it stands.
The emotional side of the film is generally very good. The strained relationship between Ian and Barley is interesting (though could be explored further), and the prospect of being able to bring their father back to life for a day is a great drive for the story that brings them together, exposes their greatest strengths and weaknesses, and delivers an emotional payoff at the climax that is among Pixar’s most impactful.
However, all of this is held back by the extremely interesting world that is both painfully under-explored, and also manages to get in the way of all of the plot’s best and most emotional moments.
I’d love to spend more time in Onward’s world of magic lost to the development of technology, but it would need to be the central focus of the film and not wrestle with a story of brotherly bonding.
It’s a surprisingly complicated world that is never given the opportunity to be properly explained, and so the surface level explanations were provided only produce more questions. To make this even more annoying, the humour of having this magical world rediscovering how to use magic clashes so much with the sombre and melancholic plot.
The emotional side of the film is generally very good. The strained relationship between Ian and Barley is interesting (though could be explored further), and the prospect of being able to bring their father back to life for a day is a great drive for the story that brings them together, exposes their greatest strengths and weaknesses, and delivers an emotional payoff at the climax that is among Pixar’s most impactful.
However, all of this is held back by the extremely interesting world that is both painfully under-explored, and also manages to get in the way of all of the plot’s best and most emotional moments.
I’d love to spend more time in Onward’s world of magic lost to the development of technology, but it would need to be the central focus of the film and not wrestle with a story of brotherly bonding.
It’s a surprisingly complicated world that is never given the opportunity to be properly explained, and so the surface level explanations were provided only produce more questions. To make this even more annoying, the humour of having this magical world rediscovering how to use magic clashes so much with the sombre and melancholic plot.
Whilst Ian and Barley are given a decent amount of screen time, it’s only Ian that comes out of the story having learned anything. It’s a missed opportunity because whilst he learns to appreciate his brother for who he is, Barley fails to recognise his own failings that made Ian embarrassed of him in the first place.
The secondary characters are mostly forgettable. I like the pairing of the boys’ mother Laurel (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Corey the Manticore (Octavia Spencer) who offer up a great double act, in fact I’d love to have seen a whole film of these two characters on a road trip.
Following Toy Story 4 I had high hopes for Onward’s visual quality, but I’m sad to say it’s back to business as usual which suffice to say is a complicated thing.
Aside from Toy Story 4, for a while the Pixar films had been struggling to balance their impressive environments with their comparatively rubbery character models, and Onward decides to attempt to rectify this by decreasing the quality of the environment to increase character model quality to a more compatible level.
I’m not sure why it didn’t just look like Toy Story 4 which was incredible across the board, but the result means that instead of having some remarkable areas of animation and others that are questionably low quality, Onward is simply average across the board.
There’s nothing that stands out, and even the art style isn’t particularly interesting because it’s a mix of generic fantasy design and even borderline Disney in style. It doesn’t look like Pixar is the key point I’m making, and when that’s paired with a story that also doesn’t feel particularly Pixar it makes me wonder what on Earth happened with this film?
Crucially, Onward is not a bad film. But it’s incredibly average, which by Pixar standards is a massive disappointment. There are no particular areas it excels, but equally it doesn’t do anything offensively bad. It’s harmless, forgettable, and suitable for the whole family. But even though it’s ending is an emotional gut punch, it doesn’t feel like it’s earned the right to do that because everything else is so bland.
You can do worse than Onward, but when stacked up against Pixar’s other films it begs the question of why you would even bother when there’s so many other amazing alternatives.
The secondary characters are mostly forgettable. I like the pairing of the boys’ mother Laurel (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Corey the Manticore (Octavia Spencer) who offer up a great double act, in fact I’d love to have seen a whole film of these two characters on a road trip.
Following Toy Story 4 I had high hopes for Onward’s visual quality, but I’m sad to say it’s back to business as usual which suffice to say is a complicated thing.
Aside from Toy Story 4, for a while the Pixar films had been struggling to balance their impressive environments with their comparatively rubbery character models, and Onward decides to attempt to rectify this by decreasing the quality of the environment to increase character model quality to a more compatible level.
I’m not sure why it didn’t just look like Toy Story 4 which was incredible across the board, but the result means that instead of having some remarkable areas of animation and others that are questionably low quality, Onward is simply average across the board.
There’s nothing that stands out, and even the art style isn’t particularly interesting because it’s a mix of generic fantasy design and even borderline Disney in style. It doesn’t look like Pixar is the key point I’m making, and when that’s paired with a story that also doesn’t feel particularly Pixar it makes me wonder what on Earth happened with this film?
Crucially, Onward is not a bad film. But it’s incredibly average, which by Pixar standards is a massive disappointment. There are no particular areas it excels, but equally it doesn’t do anything offensively bad. It’s harmless, forgettable, and suitable for the whole family. But even though it’s ending is an emotional gut punch, it doesn’t feel like it’s earned the right to do that because everything else is so bland.
You can do worse than Onward, but when stacked up against Pixar’s other films it begs the question of why you would even bother when there’s so many other amazing alternatives.