ONWARD - Highschool Fantasy

Me: "Well, I don't think there's any more abstract or inanimate object left for Pixar to make me cry over."

Pixar: "Here's a pair of magic pants."

Me: "Oh SUNUVA-"

It took nearly 20 years for Disney and Pixar to come up with their own answer to Shrek and it's kinda sneakily brilliant in that the result begins like a DreamWorks film and then morphs into a Pixar movie in real time.

I know, I'll try to explain it so it makes actual sense.

Onward begins with a premise that's both so broad and immediately recognizable in its logline ("What if medieval fantasy, but now?") that it seems like it would be stretched as a Far Side gag, but uses said broad canvas and immediate familiarity with the base archetypes that audiences will have to continually make smart storytelling decisions and creative use of familiar parts. Set in a world that's more or less "Dungeons and Dragons in Suburbia," Onwward follows Barry and Ian, two teen elf brothers who receive a coming-of-age gift set aside for them by their long-deceased father. A spell and a wizard's staff offer the chance for one of the siblings to see their dad for the first time since almost before he can remember, and the other to meet him for the first time, period. However, something goes wrong and the spell only brings back the lower half of his body, necessitating a quest for a magical item to complete the enchantment.

While Barry - the older, brash and enthusiastically irresponsible brother - is all over this idea, Ian is awkward and unsure of himself in the face of inviting people to a party, much less following maps of yore to mystical items, so you have the perfect cocktail for a road trip film. If this sounds like someone dumped a few dragons and wizards into A Goofy Movie, you're not completely wrong (and that's a good thing). Things are complicated by 1) unresolved tension between the brothers, 2) Laurel, their concerned mother, in pursuit once she finds out about an unknown (by the boys) danger, and 3) several other players that start as easy sitcom stock and then evolve into three-dimensional characters.

This is not a movie that immediately tips its hand as to where it's going to go or how it's going to stick the landing. While "Get it, they have to use a magic staff to get gas for their van!" is the kind of gag that's easy to roll your eye at on the page, the film is incredibly good at planting and paying off small things to make for solid jokes and escalating character beats, and also at finding ways to turn mundane things into a spectacle (like having to learn how to merge onto the freeway. . .while being chased by pixie bikers) and playing with scale (again, pixie bikers) in clever ways. Because Barry has a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the "historically accurate" table-top role-playing game that he's modeling their quest after, there's an easy exposition engine to the audience (through his relaying Important Stuff to Ian) while still being interesting because of the conflicting personalities and the wrinkles modern life throws into the "rules" of a fantasy campaign.

Because of how this unfolds, the film has a very clear and solid first act, an increasingly clever and exciting second act (where characters like Laurel really start to show their stuff), and an absolute thrasher of a finale where multiple emotional beats land in a row and multiple characters have arcs conclude during big spectacular fantasy set pieces. It's like watching a 3-star movie decide to be a 4-star movie and then say "Screw it, may as well try for 5" in the home stretch. And it comes closer than not.

Onward doesn't have the singular creativity of Inside Out or the singular world-building of the Toy Story movies or even the fairy tale passion of Brave, but it's got real convictions in its conceit and a determination never to make the easy or boring storytelling choice even when it seems like that's the point of such a broad concept. And if the films assertion that "everyone still has a little adventure left in them" is a rather blatant shot to call for an animation studio that's been continually operating longer than almost any other in the world, they certainly don't miss it.