Onward (2020)

Onward

Written by Dan Scanlon, Jason Headley, & Keith Bunin

Directed by Dan Scanlon

Accompanying Short: Playdate with Destiny

Written by Al Jean, et al.

Directed by David Silverman

Here it is! The final (for now) animated film from Pixar! And…what a weird way to end this list. Seriously, this movie is a little bizarre.

Maggie lives out a fantasy with her new beau

Since Disney, which owns Pixar, now owns 20th Century Fox (AND TOMORROW, THE WORLD!), I guess it’s not that big a surprise that in front of a Pixar film would be a short from…The Simpsons. Yeah, I know. It’s weird. As someone who (obviously) doesn’t mind watching cartoons, The Simpsons have never really DONE anything for me. I know many people who love the show, but I’ve never really been able to get into it (and trust me, I tried. An ex of mine LOVES the show). Having said that, Playdate with Destiny is surprisingly funny. Not knowing much about the show, Maggie is a character I know very little about, except that she’s a baby and she shot Mr. Burns? Therefore, I don’t know if this short is out of character for her or not (I’m hoping not, because she was pretty dang cute), but watching this love story play out wordlessly was much more entertaining than I expected. I have to knock off a tiny bit on the grade because it’s not a short from Pixar (which is kinda what I’m doing here), but I still enjoyed it.

I don’t know, however, if I really enjoyed Onward. Don’t get me wrong, the premise was very interesting, but I don’t know if the story that it produces really succeeds. I’ve said before that not every Pixar film needs to be groundbreaking or brilliant, and that even the most average of Pixar’s films are pretty good (the Cars franchise notwithstanding), and the same is basically true here. It’s not exactly groundbreaking, and it’s definitely not brilliant, but it’s also not awful.

Barley and Ian meet the Manticore

Onward tells the story of a realm inhabited by magical creatures, most of whom have forgotten how to use magic and have evolved in a sort of parallel-universe to our own: think Monsters, Inc. without the human-world component. It’s Zootopia, but with mythical creatures. Two elves, Ian and Barley, receive a spell that can bring their deceased father back for a single day; in the course of performing the spell, something goes awry, and they’re left with only his bottom half. They set off on a quest to get a gem to complete the spell, hijinks ensue, feelings are had. Pretty standard Pixar fare.

Except…something feels off. Something that I find difficult to put my finger on. The film doesn’t FEEL like a Pixar film. In each of the films that precede it, there’s been a certain SOMETHING that makes the film feel as though it’s part of the same universe (even if they’re not interconnected). Onward feels off from that, as if a different studio made the film. It also feels like it might be trying too hard: trying too hard to be funny, to be action-packed, to be emotional. It almost feels like a rough draft of a better movie. That’s not to say that I could do it better, but the film just didn’t feel as on the same caliber as most of the other films on this list.

Ian practices his newfound magic, encouraged by Barely

Pixar is no stranger to the emotion game, and here it tries to duplicate its previous successes, but doesn’t hit the mark. There is great material in the concept of Barley realizing that everyone thinks he’s a screwup, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. He has a confrontation with Ian in the next scene which is quickly diffused, and it comes back up again in the climax, but Barley IS such a hapless character that’s it’s kinda hard to sympathize with him: he IS a screwup, even if his hunches have been right. Most of the conflict that happens to the characters are a result of his actions, so it’s very easy to side with Ian when he explodes on Barley, even though the film is wanting you to side with Barley at least as much as with Ian, if not more so.

There are a few other odd choices that are made in the film, but I have to chalk it all up to…something. There is just SOMETHING about this film that doesn’t land with me. I think Onward has a great idea, but then it creates a story that doesn’t do justice to the world it’s conjured up. I will admit that the ending doesn’t ring as true to me because I haven’t had to be in the position that Ian and Barley are, and that perhaps in the future I’ll watch this film again and “get it”. However, in the meantime, this film will close out the current list with a whimper, not a bang.

SHORT GRADE: B-

FILM GRADE: C+