{"id":46084,"date":"2020-03-06T15:19:38","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T20:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=46084"},"modified":"2020-03-06T15:20:06","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T20:20:06","slug":"advance-review-onward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2020\/03\/advance-review-onward\/","title":{"rendered":"Advance Review \u2013 \u201cOnward\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            With\n\u201cOnward,\u201d one streak was going to come to an end. In one corner was Pixar, who\nafter 25 years of making consistently impressive animated films, might finally\nrelease a bad one. In the other corner was 2020, which after two months had yet\nto see the release of a single film I\u2019d recommend (not even this weekend\u2019s\nwell-reviewed \u201cThe Invisible Man,\u201d whose high praise I don\u2019t understand). The\ntwo went to battle, and as I predicted, Pixar scored a first-round knockout. This\nfilm is smart, touching, and of course fun \u2013 everything I expect from Pixar and\nmiss in other movies, especially this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

            The\nfilm takes place in a world of elves and pixies and other magical creatures. A\nlong time ago it contained magic, but the spells proved dangerous and\ndifficult, so technology was invented for those with no magic in them. As a\nresult, the world now looks like ours, save for the beings that inhabit it and\na few adjustments to accommodate their shapes and sizes. The magic has almost\ndisappeared, though a few folks want to preserve it for use in emergencies. I\nwas worried that the movie wouldn\u2019t be able to get me invested in this\nfantastical world (the way some people complain that they can\u2019t get drawn into\nthe weird world of \u201cCars\u201d), but the opening moments effectively establish its\nidentity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Ian\n(Tom Holland) and Barley (Chris Pratt) are a pair of elf brothers who live with\ntheir mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Ian living with is mother is expected, as\nhe\u2019s just a teenager, but Barley is an adult who just isn\u2019t driven to move out.\nHe has other priorities, like protecting local magical landmarks, playing\nfantasy board games, and driving around in his junker of a van. The brothers\u2019\nfather died when Barley was very young and Ian wasn\u2019t even born, so Ian has had\nto grow up without a father figure, and big brother Barley doesn\u2019t count (or\ndoes he?). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            On\nIan\u2019s sixteenth birthday, the brothers get a long-dormant gift from their late\nfather: a magic staff, complete with a rare gem that can be used to cast a\nspell to bring the father back for one day. Barley is inherently unfit for\nmagic, but the meeker Ian has the ability to do it \u2013 he\u2019s just not very good at\nit, getting the spell to half-work by bringing back the bottom half of the\nfather\u2019s body without the top half that can talk. The brothers have to go on a\nquest to get another gem, even though the business of both magic and\nadventuring are completely new to Ian. Their travels take them to a tavern run\nby a sellout manticore (Octavia Spencer), a gas station frequented by a rowdy\ngang of pixie bikers, on the run from their mother\u2019s well-meaning centaur cop\nboyfriend (Mel Rodriguez), and a host of other challenges, all while they have\nto keep tabs on their unintentionally half-absent father. And of course, they\nlearn truths and lessons about each other and themselves along the way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Before\nI get too carried away, I should pull back and say that \u201cOnward\u201d doesn\u2019t quite\nreach the upper echelon of Pixar\u2019s output. It can be sloppy at times, like with\nhow magic is supposed to be really difficult in this world, yet Ian learns to\nmaster it over the course of 24 hours. Or how the big baddie at the end is a\ndragon, and this world hasn\u2019t established anything about dragons and their\ntraits. Or how the mother and the manticore go on a side-quest that serves\nlittle purpose other than to remind us that these characters are in fact in the\nmovie. But all those complaints melt away when I\u2019m laughing harder in the first\nfive minutes than I have at any whole movie in months, or when I\u2019m audibly (and\nembarrassingly) gasping at a harrowing action sequence involving a bottomless\npit. I charge you to go \u201cOnward\u201d to the theater and see this movie as soon as\npossible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade: B<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnward\u201d is rated PG for\naction\/peril and some mild thematic elements. Its running time is 102 minutes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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