Onward: Pixar's latest is a fast-moving tale of modernized elves that doesn't quite stick the emotional landing
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B
As good as they’ve become at creating watchable sequels, I give an extra half-grade in my mind to anything Disney Pixar does that doesn’t have a digit after the title.
And despite evoking a lot of previous pop-cultural touchstones (including Harry Potter, Shrek and even Weekend at Bernie’s), the nerd-minded, fast-moving Onward has wit, eye-catching anachronisms and imaginative action (think angry biker-fairies in a Fast & Furious-level car chase, and a jet plane flying over a Dungeons & Dragons-esque landscape).
Ian (Tom Holland) astounds his brother (Chris Pratt) as he finds his magic mojo in Onward
Written and directed by Dan Scanlon (Monsters University), Onward takes place in a modern world-without-wonder, dominated by smartphones, fast-food and technology with little regard for history - a societal condition made more glaring by the fact that people in the town of New Mushroomton variously have pointy ears, half-horse bodies, wings, etc., but consider the realm of magic to be nonsense. Seems science was easier to master than magic, and after a while, spells disappeared from the culture.
We meet an elf named Ian (voiced by Tom Holland), who’s experiencing a life crisis on his 16th birthday, with no real friends, an oafish, embarrassing, magic-embracing brother named Barley (Chris Pratt), and a step-dad who’s a police centaur (Mel Rodriguez), recently married to his widowed mom (Julia Louis-Dreyfus).
Just at the point that they most miss their deceased dad, Ian and Barley discover a staff and a crystal that indicates dad had been secretly practicing the forgotten arts before he died. He left behind a spell to bring back the deceased for one day. Barley knows the spells (from his years of playing a card game extremely similar to Magic: The Gathering), but doesn’t have the magic mojo. Ian, who knows nothing about magic, turns out to be a natural sorcerer.
Together they try to bring dad back, but only get the job half-done. He is back in the world of the living, but only from the pants down. They have a day to straighten out their mistake, and must find the powerful Phoenix Gem needed to finish the spell.
This is the Weekend at Bernie’s part, with a half-man half-nothing flopping about, a makeshift dummy comprising his top-half. Dad is essentially a moving prop, the catalyst for slapstick episodes throughout the movie.
As the chase goes on, Ian and Barley are pursued, both by the cops and by their newly warrior-ized mom and her new friend, a Manticore (Octavia Spencer), who had traded her battle-ready lifestyle to run a family-friendly theme restaurant specializing in kids’ birthday parties.
For a movie with father issues at its core, Onward doesn’t quite stick the landing on its emotions, with sentimental epiphanies popping up out of nowhere in the last act.. This is no Lion King or Toy Story in that regard. But if we’re being honest here, that stuff has always been for the grown-ups anyway.
If you’re there for the kids, the story moves as fast as anything Disney Pixar has released in years, and I can at least guarantee Onward is practically fidget-free.
Onward. Written and directed by Dan Scanlon. Starring the voices of Tom Holland, Chris Pratt and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Opens wide Friday, March 6.