Onward is a perfectly fine Pixar movie with a bizarre twist
0Reported today on The Verge
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Reported today in The Verge.
Onward is a perfectly fine Pixar movie with a bizarre twist
Over the last decade, Pixar has added a new trick to its considerable list of talents: the missable blockbuster. A truly bad Pixar movie is still extremely rare, but a serviceable one that doesn't necessarily feel like an event? They're now a part of the studio's repertoire, even if they feel odd every time. Onward is the latest and strangest of these: a Pixar movie that doesn't quite look like a Pixar movie, even though it almost feels like one.
Perhaps part of the problem is that Onward is both incredibly strange and rather sweet, but it only half-commits to either feeling. In Onward, Ian (Tom Holland) and Barley (Chris Pratt) Lightfoot are elf brothers in a world that's kind of like ours but inhabited by fantasy creatures like centaurs and unicorns. There used to be magic in this world, the prologue explains, but technology came along, and that was much easier. So people abandoned magic, and magic went away.
The plot begins in earnest on Ian's 16th birthday, which is when his late father arranged for him and his older brother to get a gift he left behind for them: a wizard staff and a spell that would let him return to the land of the living for one day to see how much they've grown. The spell, however, goes awry and only brings half of their father back - the lower half. Now, the brothers have 24 hours to find a gem they need to complete the spell and spend a little time with their father, bringing his disembodied legs around with them. To make this easier, they attach a stuffed torso to his glowing waist and lead him along with a leash.
Yeah, it's hard to believe, but Onward is 100 percent Weekend at Bernie's for kids. It is impossible to get over this, and that the filmmak