PIXAR’S personal touch
The look is dazzling, but ‘Onward’ scores on its deeply humane story.
Here’s the deal with Pixar. It hasn’t made a rotten film yet. OK, the studio has released a meaningless, forgettable effort every so often, such as “Cars 2,” or turned potential gold into a missed opportunity, like the narratively bereft “Brave.” But a flat-out travesty, a la “The Emoji Movie”? Nope. That’s a pretty impressive record, given that the Emeryville-based animation studio has been around since 1979. But then came the trailers for Pixar’s latest, “Onward,” and it looked like the studio had finally reached that dubious distinction. The trailer was such a gnarly, chaotic mess you couldn’t figure out what the heck “Onward” was even about, let alone
see where the almost obligatory sense of Pixar magic would come from. It was an antic blitz that threw everything at you except a storyline. Lucky for audiences and Pixar, it was the trailer that was the dud. The film itself is another worthy entry into the studio’s filmography. And while director and co-screenwriter Dan Scanlon’s bittersweet fantasy fable does jump around too often, like a video game, it does have surprising gusts of emotion that will elicit sniffles and tears. Scanlon’s story follows two elf brothers, one a depressed teen named Ian (Tom Holland) and the other a ne’er-do-well video gamer named Barley (Chris Pratt), and their frenetic quest to make their recently resurrected father whole again for one day. The story was influenced by the fact that Scanlon lost his own father when he just a year old, and “Onward” deftly navigates through some tricky emotional terrain, dealing with such issues as loss, grieving and learning to appreciate those who love you while they’re still around. Yet not once does it feel like someone’s wagging a finger at you and sermonizing. That’s Pixar’s delicate approach, and it’s always worth embracing. Instead, the film is entertaining throughout, and, per the norm for Pixar, the attention to detail is impeccable, even awe-inspiring. It’s not just the look of “Onward” but the way the visual elements add to the story that is so impressive. The studio’s major-league team of animators has created a world that has lost its magic. The dragons that once roamed wild are now domesticated pets and the unicorns that lived peacefully are now cranky and snap at each other in the burbs. A popular rowdy, dank tavern has been replaced by a garish familyfriendly restaurant with a oh-so boring menu. At the center of the story we meet the Lightfoot family, which has taken in a domesticated dragon that acts like a doggie. (He’s terribly cute.) When the brothers receive a wizard’s staff left by their deceased father, they decide to conjure him up — but only his legs appear. So they embark on a journey to find the rest of him. Mom (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) skedaddles after the boys. She eventually teams up with a manticore (Octavia Spencer, a scream) who’s getting her wild side back after being the proprietor of that ho-hum restaurant. As in any quest adventure — from “King Arthur” to “The Avengers” — there are bumps aplenty along the journey, many of them quite funny, such as when a nervous Ian gets into the driver’s seat. That bit leads to even more laughs when Ian and Barley are pulled over by unicorn Officer Spector (Lena Waithe), Disney’s first and most welcome gay character. All of that is charming, predictable and smooth fun. But then Scanlon and his co-writers Jason Headley and Keith Bunin defy expectations, transforming what seems like a routine tale into something rather extraordinary and human. And that’s all I’ll say about that. It’s wrapped up in a beautiful ending that later suffers from a tacked-on bit that should have been left on the editing floor. “Onward” certainly isn’t the best thing Pixar has created — “WALL-E” retains that title, with “Ratatouille” a close second — but it is one of its most unexpectedly soulful films and, most important, is not a sequel or a reboot. I say “Onward” with that, Pixar.