Uncut Gems
Onward, the 22nd Pixar film, is the studio at its most creatively inept. The film tells a recycled story the studio has done time and time again, but with the element of magic (and the Phoenix Gem, so that’s why this review is called UNCUT GEMS in honor of a much better film I’ve been harassing people to see). Having never met his father, Ian (Tom Holland) has the opportunity to do so by casting a visitation spell given to him by his father before he passed away. However, he screws up the spell and brings half of his body. Ian has now 24 hours to find another Phoenix Gem before his dad disintegrates for good and never has the chance to see him — and so he goes on a quest with his brother, Barley (Chris Pratt) to get the rest of his father back.
The reason why Onward doesn’t lift as high as pretty much all of the other Pixar films is the predictably coddling structure it adopts. There is nothing fresh, new and/or original found in its script — just a buch of recycled ideas that were done in better movies. Yes, the animation is absolutely stunning and looks terrific on IMAX. There are also a number of terrific action setpieces that absolutely benefit the large-screen format and are the best sequences of the entire film. The film’s climax in which Ian and Barley fight “The Curse” alongside the Manticore (Octavia Spencer) and their mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is the film’s most exciting setpiece — visually kinetic, but also incredibly tense. For the first time, the film actually goes into exciting territory and delivers a climax that goes against what most animated films tend to do — deliver a satisfying ending that everyone hopes for. It’s the only moment that writer/director Dan Scanlon and co-screenwriters Jason Headley and Keith Bunin decide to do something different and challenge their audience. I genuinely felt something — and that something was missing since the very beginning (without spoiling).
Sure, the voice acting is definitely solid, but I was never drawn into Ian & Barley’s relationship. By far, the most interesting character of the entire film was Octavia Spencer’s Manticore (Corey) — who has the funniest lines of the movie and actually has a purpose, compared to two brothers who keep bickering at one another. Ian & Barley’s relationship is inherently clichéd, meaning that their arc will follow the same beat as every movie involving siblings that don’t go along. They will have a fight that will distance themselves, because one is more egotistical than the other and keeps making bad decisions, and the other is angry at him because the egotistical one is a screw-up, etc. I’ve seen all of this before — and it isn’t because it’s Pixar that Onward goes above all of the other movies that tackle this storyline. Yes, Pratt & Holland are great — but I never felt any emotional weight or excitement seeing these two team-up. Yes, even during the film’s “reveal” in which everything that Ian searched for through his father could actually be found with his brother, who’s been there his whole life feels emotionless, because the characters only respond to pre-conceived emotions that were taken from the book: “Writing a movie about siblings that don’t go along, but they realize that they’ve always loved each other for dummies.”
Pixar movies have always innovated — they’ve always been incredibly mature and challenged their children audiences with subjects that you rarely see in family films: the best Pixar film of all-time, Coco, explores the theme of death & grief in a way that most live-action films dream of doing. Onward follows what most animated films do: emotionally manipulate gullible audiences with a recycled, paint-by-numbers, script that does nothing new to the animated film genre with a story you’ve seen a thousand times before. Oh, and about the LGBTQ+ character that Disney’s been trying to push for the past few weeks, it’s another “blink-and-you’ll miss it” character (she says “my girlfriend’s daughter”…and that’s it) that Disney loves to pat itself on the back for to pretend that they’ve progressed, even though Laika did it better than anyone else with Paranorman. It’s nothing to get riled up about (lookin’ at you One Million Moms).
At least there’s Pete Docter’s Soul to look forward too.
✯✯
