"Onward" Review - Into the Woods Then Out of the Woods

So comes another Pixar film this year. It’s the first of a pair that will be released in 2020, and I’ve always had a major approval of the Disney Studio as a majority of their films have never been bad. Even about half of their over 20 movies are some of the best animated films of all time. When you have a track record as good as Pixar’s, not all films will be a home run. But they do have a gold standard when it comes to original ideas, and that’s exactly what we got with “Onward”, which is only Pixar’s 3rd original idea in the past five years.

“Onward” is not an absolute masterpiece like Up, Inside Out, or Coco. But it’s kind of unfair to have a bar set that high. If we were to judge all animated films on the bar of Pixar, we’d all be looking at some serious shit in the cinemas. But this flick is absolutely terrific and hits all the marks well above average when it comes to the beauty of animation, the writing, the story, and the magic. Chris Pratt and Tom Holland make for a wonderful duo along with some surprisingly funny performances from the likes of actresses like Octavia Spencer. While the plot did seemed a bit rushed and had some weird holes and inconsistencies, the whole ride felt like I was watching a hybrid of The Blues Brothers and Harry Potter. It’s got buddy cop comedy paired with a great imaginative world only Pixar can conjure up. And of course, it’s got heart. You can’t have a film like this without some heart, and the last 30 minutes surely have everything you want out of something like this.

I honestly wasn’t expecting it to be this good. After all, we still have “Soul” coming out, which is going to be Pixar’s holy grail of 2020 with Pete Docter at the helm. I thought this was just something that was thrown in March because Disney might not have too much confidence in it. But it’s easily a level above Brave and Monsters University. Unlike the former two, this has got the perfectly equal balance of action, adventure, sadness, comedy, and pure joy that we’ve all come to know out of the greatest animation companies in history. It didn’t do too well this weekend, but I encourage all of you to go see it at some point in the cinema. From a general parent’s or kid’s perspective, “Onward” is a joy ride that will please you all the way to the ends of the earth.

Two Nebs Up!