ONWARD
Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B
Editing: B
Animation: B+
Onward is a movie that makes me think of Pixar Animation Studios’ glory days . . . which we are not in.
It’s still a worthy watch, mind you. It’s reliably entertaining; I got a few really good laughs out of it; the voice talent is lively and engaging. It also has a truly odd premise, wrapped in a well-conceived and often beautifully rendered world. Fantasy creatures have evolved in a world where practical technology has somehow rendered magic outdated, but two teenage brothers find a magic spell that will bring their dad back for one day. Something goes wrong, and for most of the movie, said dad exists only as his bottom half: his feet and legs, up to the waist.
Uhh. Okay.
Pixar made a name for itself, back in the day, with a seamless combination of unparalleled heart and unique cleverness. Movies like Cars (2006) and later Brave (2012) indicated initial loose stitches in those seams, arguably saved in their own right largely on the strength of the studio’s foundational narrative structures. If I can offer what is still my favorite film studio a bit of a backhanded compliment, it may be that over time they began to offer diminishing returns—but at least the rate at which they have diminished has been slower than that of any other studio.
Pixar still doesn’t make duds. They just make some movies, now, that bring a possibly unfair disappointment because their earlier work was so spectacular. This is the problem, albeit a slight one, with Onward. It’s a good movie. But other animation studios regularly put out movies just as good as this, and Pixar is supposed to stand apart. They always used to anyway; they were reliably a cut above the rest. And they do still regularly put out films that remind us of that, from the near-perfect Inside Out (2015) to the deeply moving Coco (2017). It’s just that now, for every such movie, they also give us an arguably unnecessary Toy Story 4 (2019), an outright pointless Cars 3 (2017, the only Pixar movie I never even bothered to see) . . . or, a merely-good-enough Onward.
It just . . . feels more like Pixar has moved into the “cashing-in” phase of their existence. The movies remain a fun experience, but something like Onward, well, it’s not an instant classic. This is not one of the movies we’ll still be re-watching regularly fifteen or twenty years from now, not like Toy Story (1995) or Finding Nemo (2003). And yes, this is a ridiculously unfair bar to set for any of these movies. Blame Pixar themselves: for ten solid years, they spoiled us! Every movie they made was spectacular. Of course that’s not sustainable. Still, the more less-than-incredible movies they release, the more they tarnish their brand.
Much as I did enjoy Onward, I’m not even bummed I couldn’t see it in theaters. This is my first written movie review since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (my first review in a record—by far—seven weeks, because of a two-week vacation that preceded it), and I am only writing this one because of these extraordinary changes of circumstance, and knowing that if theaters were open right now, this movie would still be in theaters and I would indeed have seen it there. Studios have adapted and offered some of their first-run movies for streaming rental, but at prices I just cannot justify spending, when renting one movie now would cost me nearly as much as I was previously paying AMC Theaters to see up to 12 movies a month. The key difference with Onward is that Disney has made it available on their Disney+ streaming platform, which I am already subscribed to.
But this still changes the context of how I might recommend the movie to others. Would this have been worth seeing in theaters? For me, absolutely! For you? Hmm. Maybe. Is it worth watching at home if you already have a Disney+ account? There is no question: yes. It’s just not going to blow you away the way countless Pixar films that came before it have, and it’s still going to have far stiffer competition from the plethora of other streaming options out there that you quite easily might enjoy either as much or more.
I just wish Onward had something more novel to say, something that set it apart to a greater degree. In many ways it just feels like other, better Pixar movies that came before. It does have its share of clever gags, and I very much enjoyed the world of fantasy creatures living in a society much more like our own, right down to mobile phones with screens that can crack. The gang of fairy bikers cracked me up. On the other hand, the voice cast feels less like voices matched perfectly to characters than voices attached to famous names just gathered for the marquee: Chris Pratt and Tom Holland as the brothers; Julia Louis-Dreyfus as their mother; Octavia Spencer as “The Manticore.” Even the existence of Ali Wong and Lena Waithe as partnered cops feels like producers telegraphing the message “Look how progressive we’re being!” just because the latter’s character makes reference to her girlfriend. Can we just get a main character who happens to be queer in one of these movies already?
I’m probably being way more critical of this movie than I have any need to be. Your kids are going to delight in it, of that I am certain. But then, they will delight in nearly any animated feature. Pixar movies are meant to be more than that. Even acknowledging how moved I was by the relationship between the siblings—and a hilarious visual gag with the climactic cursed dragon-beast—there is a depth to Pixar’s emotional and thematic capabilities that is just missing here. Onward is not more than that. It’s just a couple hours of harmless, often clever fun. Normally I say that’s all you need, but once in a while you just want a little more, when you know how much greater the capabilities are.
Did I mention some parts of this movie are just plain corny?
Overall: B