Since watching Onward, I’ve been trying to decipher the meaning of its’ title. It doesn’t quite coalesce with any major themes of the film except in the basest sense of character and journey progression, nor is the word given any real significance in-text. I think I came to the conclusion it’s mostly a marketing name concocted by the brand executives at Disney, given they’re in the business lately of simple one-word titles for any animated features that aren’t sequels, but it’s declaratory function is still important and useful.
Pixar isn’t the same company it once was. The bastion of strange, original concepts in family entertainment that shepherded the animated forms’ capacity for heartwarming values and artistic ambition in the United States has become mostly just another branch of the mainstream Disney behemoth in recent years. Most of their output in the 2010s have been sequels, with only three truly great additions to their canon (Toy Story 3, Inside Out, and Coco) that whole decade; and even perfectly decent movies like Finding Dory and Toy Story 4 feel lesser next to the substantial quality of the movies that spawned them and the overwhelming fact they were wholly unnecessary. Even the tradition of the original Pixar shorts, often the only way modern audiences could see short films at all, has been slowly phased out, as evidenced by this films’ pairing with a disgustingly synergistic Simpsons short instead (I had a barely restrained urge to boo the crossover logo that introduced it).
In that context, Onward kicking off Pixar’s twenty-fifth year of feature animation with such boldness in both its title and concept, feels like perhaps a sign of changing tides, and though it certainly isn’t as strong as the studios’ classics it’s got an ambition that’s been somewhat lacking of late. It’s also just really funny.
Taking its cues from road movies and Dungeons & Dragons, Onward reimagines the prototypical fantasy world full of folkloric and mythological creatures as contemporary suburbia, where an insecure teenage elf called Ian (Tom Holland) and his slacker older brother Barley (Chris Pratt) embark on a quest to find an ancient magical gem that could bring back their deceased father for a single day. The film is that rare personal movie for Pixar animation, it’s director and co-writer Dan Scanlon (whose previous effort for the studio was the intensely forgettable Monsters University) basing the premise of two brothers losing their father at a young age and longing to know him later in life on his own childhood experiences. That genuine touch shines through the otherwise formulaic sentimental hook and gives it a degree of real emotionality, if never quite reaching the heights of past Pixar movies in the effort.
Where the film is considerably more focused is in the humour inherent in its world, having a lot of fun with the idea of a modern society set to a fantasy aesthetic. In avoiding the complex and convoluted world orders and the whim to address implicit issues it is far out of its depth to confront that suffocated the conceptually similar Bright, Onward makes for a frequently fun and even clever dissection of fantasy tropes, and more specifically the trivial conventions and weird minutia of D&D. In fact the movie is essentially a metaphor for someone not into D&D being pressured into it by someone who’s really into D&D. A lot of the humour is tailor-made to resonate with viewers familiar with the ins and outs of that multi-generational role-playing game, but through the pseudo-episodic plot there’s more than enough inventive comedy for everyone, from a historic gothic tavern turned family restaurant to an army of coked-out biker pixies (voiced by the supremely talented Grey Griffin) to everything they do with the animate bottom-half of the kids’ father, their additional companion spawned out of a fluke.
The adventure, like any good campaign, is engaging and unpredictable, and Ian and Barley are an incompatible enough duo to carry us through it. They may both be nerd cliches, but to quite different types, so they play off each other well. Holland and Pratt are fine, with good chemistry, even if they play the brothers as mostly shadows of their Marvel roles -it’s really the supporting voice actors, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Octavia Spencer, and Mel Rodriguez who stand out most. However, Onward is the second film this year to waste Ali Wong as a briefly appearing cop, this time partnered with Lena Waithe as Pixar’s latest baby step towards queer representation.
What impression the movie leaves is in the dressing. Thematically, it’s fairly shallow and doesn’t bring much new to table in its moralizing. Its’ signature Pixar weepy scene is nice but uninspired, and the characters themselves, though sufficient for this story, are too archetypal to stand out amidst the Disney company jungle. It’s not as thoughtful as it wants to be and doesn’t deal enough with these boys (and Ian especially) living fully in their fathers’ shadow inhibiting their growth. Nevertheless, Onward is terribly entertaining; its’ creative set-pieces, mundanely mystical world, and fresh humour allowing it a charm that feels legitimately different for a studio and brand so mired in homogeneity. “Onward” is definitely the right attitude to have, and with Pixar’s next effort for 2020 being the equally ambitious Soul (from the studios’ reliable director and CCO Pete Docter) and with no additional sequels in the works currently, I’m beginning to feel this wing of Disney at least has a once again promising future.
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