ONWARD ★★★★
(Cert U, 107mins)
IT’s 25 years since Pixar changed the world of animation with Toy Story, the first feature film entirely made on computers. Onward isn’t quite as revolutionary.The plot is a standard quest, the animation is flawless but forgettable, the fantasy setting is familiar and the hero is
another boy wizard. But there’s plenty of Pixar magic in this little charmer.
The film begins with an announcement: “Long ago, the world was full of wonder”. We’re shown a fantasy realm filled with elves, trolls and all manner of fantastical creatures.
But casting spells was hard work. Once they developed smartphones and fast food, magic faded into myth and
Middle Earth turned into a bog-standard American suburb.
It’s here that we meet two pointy-eared brothers, shy 16-year-old Ian (Tom Holland) and Barley (Chris Pratt), a boisterous slacker obsessed with a Dungeons & Dragonsstyle board game.
The brothers are shaken when Ian receives a letter and a staff from the dead father he never met and who Barley can barely remember. By waving it around, Ian (who has never explored his magical powers) will be able to summon up his father for just 24 hours. But the staff’s magical gemstone shatters when his dad has only half materialised.
To replace it, the brothers and their father’s bottom half (a nifty visual metaphor for the half-remembered dead) must embark on a quest. First stop is
The Manticore’s Tavern, now a fantasy-themed restaurant where Octavia Spencer’s griffin labours under a strict health and safety policy. From here, the film turns into a road movie filled with chases and sight gags.
Like Pixar’s best movies, this touching adventure keeps kids and adults under its spell and the tear-jerking ending could turn grown ups into babies.