Onward. (PG.)
Directed by Dan Scanlan.
Featuring Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Octavia Spencer and Mel Rodriguez. 107 mins.
The latest from Pixar is Onward, but not necessarily upward. In the first decade of the 21st century, the Pixar film was invariably one of the highlights of the year. In the second decade of the 21st century, the Pixar film was invariable a sequel. (Between this and Up in 2009 only four original features were scattered among seven sequels.)
This has an original premise: a society filled with mythical beings – unicorns, pixies, wizards, that crowd – who have lost their belief in magic, spells and quests and have settled into lives of bland North American consumerism. Middle Earth has become Modern World. The Lightfoot brothers Ian (Holland in the Jay Baruchel role) and Barley (Pratt, in the Jack Black role) have to revive the old ways on a quest to bring back to life for 24 hours the father who died before Ian was born.
There's a line in the film, “in a quest, the obvious path is not the right path." With Pixar you always know the destination – tears – and if the route there isn't yet obvious, it is becoming mighty familiar, even if they have changed scenery a bit. Probably the film, with its themes of reconciliation and lose, will appeal to adults more than children, though grown-ups will have to stomach another piece of corporate anti-corporatism, where the Dizney Industrial Complex - 2019 profits nearly $30 billion - lecture us on the way free market capitalism has sucked the magic out of life.
Also, the premise doesn't seem to me to be fully thought through. Yes, I know this might be ridiculously pedantic but I just couldn't get past it: why would a diverse society full of creatures great and small, live in a society built exclusively on a human scale? If you are a centaur policeman, why would you squeeze your four-footed horsey frame into a standard sized cop car? They have forsaken their belief in magic, not commonsense.
Directed by Dan Scanlan.
Featuring Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Octavia Spencer and Mel Rodriguez. 107 mins.
The latest from Pixar is Onward, but not necessarily upward. In the first decade of the 21st century, the Pixar film was invariably one of the highlights of the year. In the second decade of the 21st century, the Pixar film was invariable a sequel. (Between this and Up in 2009 only four original features were scattered among seven sequels.)
This has an original premise: a society filled with mythical beings – unicorns, pixies, wizards, that crowd – who have lost their belief in magic, spells and quests and have settled into lives of bland North American consumerism. Middle Earth has become Modern World. The Lightfoot brothers Ian (Holland in the Jay Baruchel role) and Barley (Pratt, in the Jack Black role) have to revive the old ways on a quest to bring back to life for 24 hours the father who died before Ian was born.
There's a line in the film, “in a quest, the obvious path is not the right path." With Pixar you always know the destination – tears – and if the route there isn't yet obvious, it is becoming mighty familiar, even if they have changed scenery a bit. Probably the film, with its themes of reconciliation and lose, will appeal to adults more than children, though grown-ups will have to stomach another piece of corporate anti-corporatism, where the Dizney Industrial Complex - 2019 profits nearly $30 billion - lecture us on the way free market capitalism has sucked the magic out of life.
Also, the premise doesn't seem to me to be fully thought through. Yes, I know this might be ridiculously pedantic but I just couldn't get past it: why would a diverse society full of creatures great and small, live in a society built exclusively on a human scale? If you are a centaur policeman, why would you squeeze your four-footed horsey frame into a standard sized cop car? They have forsaken their belief in magic, not commonsense.
