“Long ago, the world was filled with wonder,” a voice-over explains at the start of the new Disney-Pixar computer animated feature “Onward.” Wizards and cyclops and gnomes and unicorns roamed a “Dungeons & Dragons” realm. “Magic helped all in need. But it wasn’t easy to master. And so the world found a simpler way to get by. Over time, magic faded away.”
Cut to a tidy contemporary Los Angeles-ish suburb where blue Smurfs—I mean, elves—lead lives of awkward high school, home exercise regimens, dorky moms’ boyfriends, and quiet desperation.
When a blue elf by the name of Ian (voiced by “Spider-Man”’s Tom Holland) turns 16, his mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) gives him a gift left for him and his older brother by their father, who fell ill and died just before Ian was born. The brothers unroll the long bundle to reveal a wizard’s staff, a magic gem, and instructions from their father for a “visitation spell” to return him to life for a single day. (“The story is inspired by my own relationship with my brother and our connection with our dad who passed away when I was about a year old,” director Dan Scanlon has said. “He’s always been a mystery to us.”)
Older brother Barley (Chris Pratt)—a “Dungeons & Dragons,” heavy metal, Jack Black-clone—attempts the spell unsuccessfully. Ian retreats to his room, mumbling the spell, and it turns out that he has a smidgeon of wizard in him. So the spell works—sorta. Their father returns, but only his bottom half—from feet to waist.
Barley launches them on a quest to find another magical gem that will allow them to complete the spell and bring the rest of their father back—before their 24 hours expire.
They roar off in Barley’s custom van Guinevere with a Pegasus painted on the side. First stop is the Manticore’s Tavern, which they sadly discover has mutated from a sordid roadhouse into a kiddie eatery. But the brothers track down the real Manticore (Octavia Spencer), who still runs the place, but has turned safe and steady to pay the bills. She refuses to give them the treasure map to the gem for fear that they’ll get hurt and sue her. They press her until she explodes: “I used to be dangerous and wild. I am living a lie. What have I become?”
Fortunately, the Manticore has given the blue brothers enough hints to continue on. They face down their van’s empty gas tank, a gang of pixies, a bottomless pit, a giant evil cube of Jell-O (a gelatinous cube, D&D fans), and their doubts about each other. They drag their half-father along with them—as comic relief. This wouldn’t be a Pixar cartoon without a pause in the jokes for heartbreak—the childhood loss of a father, the (near) failure of dreams, the noble sacrifice of your custom van.
“Onward,” Pixar’s 22nd feature film, is a modest, comfortable outing from the animation company. It’s better than Scanlon’s last outing as director, 2013’s “Monsters University,” and the story is more tidily assembled than “Brave.” But “Onward” doesn’t aim for and doesn’t achieve the epic drama of a “Toy Story” or “Finding Nemo” or “Wall-E” or “Ratatouille.” And “Onward” shares a weakness of most Pixar’s films—an interest mainly in Caucasian guys. The mom and Manticore fade into supporting roles.
Will Ian and Barley find the gem in time? Will Ian find his magic and his courage? Will Barley prove he’s not a screw up? In this kind of movie, do you even have to ask? Their quest for their lost father becomes a fable about the complicated bonds of brothers. In the end, they may not have a dad (and, in a Pixar film, who cares about mom?), but they have each other.
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