Onward (2020)

User Review

• 

  d_riptide

  7 / 10

  Even with its relatively by the books plotline and story, “Onward” surpasses the bare minimum and briefly treads the well of tears once more while following their usual bag of tricks: A creative premise, some goofy slapstick humor, and beautiful visual and progressive storytelling. It is both fairly innocent and serious with both its subject matter and premise, it’s comedy is more hit than miss, cinematography and editing are impressive (which isn’t really saying much), the bond between the two brothers were very relatable and reliable, it’s action set-pieces were actually a far step ahead of what I anticipated, the voice acting is remarkably well done and how can we forget their ability to use modern machinery of animation to evoke the eternal wonder of being human.
  
  The multitude of messages and themes in this movie are stuff that already know but they don’t hold back on these very adult themes rather well. It ranges from learning how scary it is to drive (out of all things), to how fear can basically run and ruin your life, the complex complications in a sibling relationship, how someone can learn to cope with death and maybe the biggest one of the bunch: how comfortable we as a society have become. There are so many nuances throughout this movie that give us glimpses of our society in the society in this movie, all of which point to a rather sad realization: we’ve gotten so used to technology, so used to being lazy and uncreative, we would rather chicken out and find a simpler solution rather than challenging yourself. Whether you laugh or you cry from that depends on who you are initially inside but the turn that this story takes well probably make you wish that you did.
  
  
  Me personally, this proves that even when Pixar doesn’t live up to their ridiculously high standards, there is still a sense of magic and enjoyment to be had here. Considering this came from the Monsters University director, this is actually a rather welcome addition.....just not one that I’m dying to revisit pretty soon.

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