Onward May Not Be a Pixar Classic, But It's a Fun Movie
Onward. Image courtesy of Pixar.
Pixar has a new film out called Onward, and I’ll be honest - I had no idea what this film was or that it had been released until I randomly ducked inside the movie theater at the Galeria Mall in Bali to see if there was anything playing while my wife was in Ace Hardware looking for candles. Had this random series of events not conspired in precisely such a way, this movie likely would have passed in and out of cinemas here in Bali without my ever having chanced upon it.
I, like most sentient humans, am a huge Pixar fan. I used to watch Toy Story over and over on repeat as a child. I thought The Incredibles did more justice to Watchmen than Zack Snyder ever could. And Inside Out was a truly clever, emotionally smart masterpiece. Sure, Pixar has mailed in some real duds - the Cars sequels, The Good Dinosaur, Incredibles 2 - but I still generally look forward to their output. Yet I had heard not a whisper of this film until it was right there in front of me.
So I went in completely cold, with no preconceptions about what Onward was or what people had been saying about it. It tells the story of a magical fantasy realm that has grown lame and mundane, and uses a father-son story built around rekindling the magic inside of and around us by finding our inner strength. Nothing revolutionary there - except for, you know, a torso-less father figure, but that’s neither here nor there. But you know what? It’s a very well made and entertaining movie, especially for families. It goes for fairly middling jokes, but they deliver and the whole film, while perhaps under-performing a bit, was thoroughly enjoyable if not exactly instant classic material.
And you know what? That’s fine with me! We live in troubling times, when rampaging dolts are running the United States and the UK and Australia, where coronavirus is causing panicked governments to suicide their own economies, where we are constantly reminded that climate change is going to dress humanity’s few remaining salad days with a toxic emulsion. I find great comfort in these little stolen, accidental moments where my wife and I can cap off a nice day eating Korean BBQ and perusing the local bookstore with an unexpected trip to the movies where we stumbled upon a Pixar film that, while it didn’t soar to any great heights, was eminently enjoyable from start to finish.
These are the days my friends, the day of days. What more can we ask for?
