The current corona crisis has not only changed daily life, the impact on the film industry is also enormous. Film companies can no longer make new films and titles that are about to be released are postponed, sometimes even by a year. Other titles, the films that are not blockbusters, will appear on VOD platforms without ever seeing the cinema (or only very shortly before the closure of cinemas). One of those titles was Pixar’s Onward, which was recently available for rent in America and is now available on Disney.
The film centers on brothers Ian (Tom Holland) and Barley (Chris Pratt). These two elves live in a world where magic has disappeared and everything looks like a typical American neighborhood (except that the houses look like mushrooms, they have a dragon as a pet, unicorns eat trash etc.). They live alone with their mother and their father died when they were young. On Ian’s birthday he gets a mysterious gift from his father. With that gift they can bring him back for a day. However, when that doesn’t work out completely, they have to start a journey to make sure they can speak to their father within a day.
What makes Onward unique is his mix of roadtrid film, D&D magic and humor. Of course in combination with a dose of emotion. It becomes clear how much the boys miss their father and what an opportunity it gives them to speak to him one last time and ask the questions they never got an answer to. So this Pixar film definitely has got a heart. With a lot of variation in environments, nice chemistry between the protagonists and a good story, Onward was a joy to watch.
[score8]
I’m so glad I got to see this in the cinema just before they all closed. It took me a while to get into it, but that ending was just perfect <3