Review

Onward Seems better until you think about the plot

Cliches and contrivances derail what should have been a better story

Reporter Kendall Billings

On March 6th, Pixar released the movie Onward. The movie was about two 11 year old boys, Ian (Tom Holland), and Barley (Chris Pratt), whose father died of some sickness. When both of them turned 16, they got a stone to bring their father back to life. However, due to a comedical mishap, their father was only reformed with the bottom half of his body. The two boys then go on an epic quest to find another way to bring back the rest of him. Exciting as this movie seems, it was a total flop. It only raked in $100 million, which seems like a lot, until you notice the production budget was $135 million. Though the movie was nice to look at, and had a lot of really cool DND vibes; the story wasn’t that great, the subplots were rarely looked at, and it had more cliches than a horror movie where everyone conveniently decides to split up.

When I heard what the movie was about I got excited. It looked like a cool movie about an epic quest. And yes, there was a quest, but it was hardly epic. Half of the movie was the two main characters driving, arguing, and being annoying. They only stopped driving when, of all things, the van they were in had to be sacrificed. Then we got a lot of walking. Along with this, I found one of the characters very annoying--older brother Barley. The movie was obviously trying to portray him as the “annoying older brother who is embarassing”, but they went way too hard on it. I found myself grimacing. Worse is that every single problem that is created came from Barley. He messed up the spell to bring the father back, was constantly starting fights, and always going against what the younger brother said. Sure, sometimes he was right, but when he was he was still annoying about it. Aren’t the watchers supposed to like their main character?

Another problem with this movie is how it likes to take the hard route. In the movie, the brothers had to find another magical stone to bring the rest of their father back before 24 hours. However, couldn’t they have just waited the 24 hours, then brought him back with the new stone? That way, the watchers wouldn’t have to sit through an annoying sob story when there was only seconds left with the father near the end of the movie. Bonus; Pixar would’ve been able to keep their epic quest and low money intake. In the trailer for this movie, they made a big deal about, “Hey! The brothers are going on a quest and their mom, with a friend, follows after them.” A lot of the sequences in the trailer were of their mom also chasing them. Despite this, their mom is rarely seen chasing them. There’s around three or four parts of this subplot. And guess what? All of it is driving. Then there is the thing about the stepfather, which is only used to help the characters later. Speaking of which, the movie loves to make conveniences for our characters. Like, for example, how the older brother just happens to love this magic DND game, so therefore, luckily, he knows a lot about magic. Plus, there’s this one part of the movie where the hardworking Manticore is refusing to give them a map. Somehow, the brothers are able to make her go in a fit of rage just like that. Personally, I doubt this Manticore, who has been running a business for years, will suddenly get angry because she has been, get this, running this business for years.

A final thing I have to say about this movie is that Pixar lays on the cliches thickly. You have the younger, shy, brother who is trying to fit in. Then, you have the extroverted older brother who is very embarrassing and ruining the younger brother’s chance to have a social life. You have that scene where the two siblings get in a fight on their journey, then make up later when they realize that friendship and love is the key to life. Then you also have the trope of angry bikers, where one character knocks down their bikes and riles them up, the hilarious magical accidents for comedic effect, and the death of a parent. Not to mention that the movie forces the younger, not confident kid, to be the magic wielder, making it so the older brother, who loves magic, needs to teach them, leading to some lovely bonding times. It also has the trope where it forces Ian, who is bad at magic, into doing the one magic spell he doesn’t know how to do.

In total, the movie was good up until I started thinking about how convoluted it all is. "Onward" was a flop, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s drowning in terrible cliches, conveniences, and no focus towards the subplots it put in there itself.