Onward: A story with heart but ultimately lacking the Pixar charm
Over the past 25 years, Pixar has set an incredibly high standard for animated films. Generation defining movies like Toy Story, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and Monsters Inc. breathed life into a new era of animation movies. Marked by defining characteristics and style, Pixar connected us, kids and adults alike, through moving and unique stories. Pixar’s latest installment, Onward, falls short by Pixar standards but still offers us a moving tale that is worth the watch.
Onward transports us to the mythological town of New Mushroomton, a world filled with creatures like elves, centaurs, fairies, and trolls. A voice-over prologue tells us that the land used to be filled with magic, but new technology like lightbulbs and microwaves, caused the people to rely more on these easy to operate modern inventions than the skill it takes to cast a spell.
It’s in this world of modern comforts that we are introduced to Ian Lightfoot (Tom Holland), an awkward, anxious teenage elf. He lives with his mother Laurel (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and slacker older brother Barley (Chris Pratt), who is obsessed with everything magic, including a fantasy like game similar to Dungeons and Dragons. The noted absence in the family is Ian and Barley’s father, who died when both the boys were young, leaving Barley with very few memories of his dad and Ian with virtually none.
On his 16th birthday, Ian is gifted a present left by his late father. He finds the gift to be a wizard’s staff with instructions to perform a spell that would bring back their dad for a full 24 hours. When the magic falls flat and only manages to conjure a part of their father (a set of legs without a body), Ian and Barley set out on a journey to retrieve a magic stone to complete the spell before their time runs out.
The journey, at first, lacks suspense and urgency, causing the movie to fall flat into other standard journey movie tropes. The disappointingly standard quest feels unoriginal because of how routine it plays. There are a number of lessons learned and heart to hearts that feel rushed, typical, and lacking complexity. Still, the movie sticks the landing with its tear-jerking and sentimental climax, which stems from director Dan Scanlon’s own life as he lost his father when he was young. The heartwarming sibling love between the two brothers is genuine and delivers a poignant punch, especially considering there aren’t many films that accurately highlight sibling relationships. The love in this story isn’t a romantic one, but a strong bond between family forged by the tragedy of losing a loved one.
Although mostly lacking originality and wit, Onward has some moments that separates it from the rest, creating its own unique voice. There’s the running gag of the body-less legs of the boys’ father, who they end up fashioning a disguise for a la Weekend at Bernie’s style. Most of the laughs come from this, as they drag the roaming legs around with them on a leash. The movie also features a groundbreaking accomplishment of featuring the first openly gay character in a Pixar film, a lesbian police officer. Her role is fleeting and the line indicating her sexual orientation is so casual that most viewers will not notice it, but that’s what makes it so great. Its casualness doesn’t let the line sink in, because, in this universe, it is accepted and normalized.
The characters in Onward lack an emotional depth, making them unremarkable and easy to forget. Even the main characters, Ian and Barley, don’t live up to the reputation of past Pixar characters. They are ordinary at best, making it easy to be indifferent towards them which ultimately offers little emotional connection. The background characters also easily fade to memory because of their small involvement in the plot. The film would’ve done better to give Octavia Spencer’s character of the Manticore (a lion-like creature) more room to blossom as her role delivered humorous moments.
Onward ultimately hits all the right buttons and will be a hit with audiences at home but risks falling into the ranks of other animated films and doesn’t quite live to the Pixar name. Its biggest downfall is the fact that it is a Pixar film. Before we even see it, we hold it to high standards considering the past successes of the studio’s previous movies. Even being one of Pixar’s more mediocre films, it still outshines other animated flicks and is worth strapping in for the ride.
