Review: Onward

While the last decade has seen Disney bring itself back from the ashes to deliver their best work since the 90s, Pixar has stumbled over the last ten years with a ton of good but not great sequels and their few original works ranging from some of their best works – Inside Out – to some of their absolute worst – Good Dinosaur. Despite that though, I still had hopes for Onward, modern fantasy is an interesting concept and Pixar have nailed the family dynamic many times before so I went into this with an open mind and fond memories of the Pixar of old.

The results, not too shabby.

Set in a fantasy world where magic is real but far too complicated to use so everyone just turned to technology and became complacent, the film follows two elf brothers, awkward teenager Ian Lightfoot and his brash older brother Barley who both live with their mother Laurel after their father Wilden died of an illness before Ian was born. On Ian’s 16th birthday, Laurel gives the boys a present from their father which turns out to be a magical staff and a precious stone called a Phoenix Gem which they can use to bring their father back for one day. Excited to finally meet his father, Ian tries to use the spell, tapping into a magical gift he didn’t even know he had... until his self-confidence catches up to him and the spell backfires, destroying the Phoenix Gem and leaving their dad with just his bottom half conjured.

With 24 hours until the spell wears off, Ian and Barley set off on an epic quest to find another Phoenix Gem and bring their father back whole, a quest filled with family restaurants, pixie gangs, gelatinous cubes and their mother’s new cop boyfriend.

Story-wise it’s quite good, definitely wearing its DND influences on its sleeve, personally I would’ve liked to have seen more of the juxtaposition between magical creatures and non-magical reality, though there was a decent amount in the first half. In all honesty, seeing these two teenagers on their own personal quest was fun in its own right and the brothers clashed well together, Ian trying to think rationally but not having the confidence to follow through while Barley is full of confidence but think their just on an adventure like his RPG games. It’s not as heavy on the fantasy as I was expecting, given the premise of the film, but that’s because at the film’s heart this is a story of two brothers and their half-dad coming together to heal, both Ian and Barley know the spell only lasts 24 hours so neither of them are fooled into thinking this is a permanent return, they just want the chance to say goodbye, and in Ian’s case say hello. The relationship between Ian and Barley is what makes the film and that’s strong enough to carry most of the weight.

Characters were fun with Ian and Barley both getting good arcs to follow, their mother Laurel – voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus – was decent but relegated to the role of anxious mother looking for her kids for far too long before breaking out in the film’s final act. Her new centaur cop boyfriend Cole Bronco was a mixed bag, at times he felt like the bumbling but well-meaning oaf who was just trying a little too hard to get the boys to like him, at others he felt like he was going to take the role as the main bad guy with how he acted once he caught up with the brothers. I don’t know if they were trying to subvert expectations about the new boyfriend character but I didn’t know how to expect him so nothing was subverted.

Outside the family the most notable character was a famed warrior turned restaurant manager, Corey The Manticore, voiced by Octavia Spencer having a whale of a time. Once a fierce warrior and curse crusher, Corey turned soft once one too many adventures got people hurt and turned her famed tavern into a family diner, only to realise her mistakes when Ian tries to get her to help. Corey was a lot of fun and I wanted to see more form her, teaming her up with Laurel was a good idea that didn’t go very far. The mix of Corey’s wild look, a lion dragon with a snake tail, with her excitable nature made her great to watch and her first scene where she has her breakdown is equal parts fun and terrifying, she had a lot more potential but Spencer did the best with what she had and helped Corey to stand out.

Rounding things out were the brothers themselves, Ian played by Tom Holland, and Barley played by Chris Pratt, Ian was arguably the more main character, it’s him that’s never met his father, it’s him that has the magic powers and it’s him that has the more concrete arc to follow with finding his confidence. On paper Ian doesn’t sound like much, a typical awkward teenager who find out he has special powers and... holy shit he’s fucking Spider-Man isn’t he? But Holland makes it work, we can hear in his voice how nervous he is about meeting his dad, how scared he is about using powers he has no knowledge about, he’s constantly second guessing himself and for as cliché as that sounds it does work for who Ian is and how he relates against Barley.

Barley himself is a fun creation, he’s clearly the older, brasher, more adventurous brother but his flaws are very evident, he acts without thinking, he talks way too much, he’s surprisingly nerdy for looking so much like a punk rocker with a love for RPG’s and a run-down old van he considers his noble steed. Pratt inject Barley with so much enthusiasm and unwarranted confidence that it’s hard not to follow him because of how sure he is on himself. But as the film goes on we see that confidence comes from a hole in his life from losing a parent at a young age and not being able to comprehend that level of loss from... holy shit he’s fucking Starlord isn’t he?

All joking aside, I did like the relationship between Ian and Barley, at first I thought that their dad with all his bottom half glory was going to factor more into the story – he ends up being a plot device more than anything – but the longer I spent with the brothers the more I realised that it’s about them and the film picks up on that in the third act, it’s not a perfect relationship, Barley is way too sure on his own gut-feelings regardless of whether or not he’s right and Ian is his own worst enemy to listen to whenever Barley is giving him advice but they’re there for each other when it counts and this trip allows them to open up to each other in a way they hadn’t been able to before. Simple stuff but for a family film it’s important to touch on these elements in a simple way.

Pixar have done family dynamics before – The Incredible still holds up in its dysfunctional nature – but this is their first time touching on just brothers and they do a decent job of it, the important elements are there, mostly from the fact that Ian’s at that age where he’s starting to resent how much of a fuck-up his brother is, how his childish fantasy games are not helping them, Barley is the only male role model Ian has ever had and as much as he loves his brother he’s finding it hard to respect him. Obviously Pixar never go too far with that – this is still aimed at children – but I respect them for touching upon it, neither Ian nor Barley have any animosity towards each other, they’re both more than willing to help when it’s called for, but the film utilised the loss of their dad to showcase how both of them have dealt with maturity, or in Barley’s case, haven’t dealt with it. It’s something I appreciated and looking back I can see why they never focussed on the father as much because he would’ve gotten in the way of that relationship.

Surrounding that brotherly core though is an alright fantasy world, not as unique as some of Pixar’s other creations but the modern day setting was a nice touch, having majestic creatures driving family hatchbacks or disgusting monsters taking food orders did have a slight charm to it. But as I said before I don’t think they used the concept as far as they could’ve, once you realise that it’s all just fantasy creatures in reality settings and not much else it kinda dampens the rest of the film. Not to say any of it is bad – the aforementioned gelatinous cube was suitably horrid and the finale fight against the cursed monster was way more intense than I was expecting, but we’ve seen these fantasy elements before, elves and pixies and goblins are nothing new and putting them into modern day wasn’t as ground-breaking as the film was hoping for so while the film is well animated and looks great, very little actually stands out.

Looking at Pixar’s original works during the last decade, I’d put Onward as a mid-tier, not as brilliant as Inside Out, not as boring as Good Dinosaur, it’s a film that doesn’t wear itself well with the modern fantasy setting not doing as much as it needed to, but at its heart the relationship between awkward Ian and confident Barley and how the two of them interacted kept the film from getting too stale on me. It’s a film that I liked but I wouldn’t save that I loved and that’s ok, I don’t need to adore every Pixar film, I just need to enjoy them for what they give me.

7/10