Onward SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Review

PIXAR fans the studio that brought us Toy Story and Inside Out is finally back after a few years of doing nothing but sequels and prequels they are finally back with an original film. I'll admit out of the two original films that they have coming out this year this is the one that I was least looking forward to seeing since it didn't really look that good in my opinion but now that the film is out here is my spoilers review of "Onward" so yeah enjoy.

The plot of the movie is two brothers find out that their deceased father left them a spell that will bring him back to life for twenty four hours but the boys mess the spell up and now embark on a quest to find what they need to redo the spell. If i'm being honest here the plot while it is indeed exciting to me just wasn't that good and it really could have done with a few more rewrites of the script just to flesh out some stuff that would enhance the film's plot and to fix somethings that should have been resolved in the third act instead of the second.

Starring in the film is Tom Holland as Ian Lightfoot , Chris Pratt as Barley Lightfoot , Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Laurel Lightfoot , Octavia Spencer as Corey , Mel Rodriguez as Colt Bronco , Kyle Bornheimer as Wilden Lightfoot , Lena Waithe as Specter , Ali Wong as Gore , Grey Griffin as Dewdrop , Tracey Ullman as Grecklin , Wilmer Valderrama as Gaxton and PIXAR regular John Ratzenberger as Construction Worker Felix.

The casting in any PIXAR film is always spot on and the same thing is true for this movie all of the characters I felt were cast perfectly. The acting is also really good for the film which again considering this is a PIXAR movie is to be expected since the acting in all of their films is always really good even in their bad movies heck I can't even think of a single bad performance in the whole film because every actor does such a good job in this movie.

Of course the animation for this film was handled by PIXAR and so you can have a good guess as to what i'm about to say next. Since it's kind of obvious that the animation in the film is honestly really top notch which again is to be expected considering that it's PIXAR but everything in this movie just looks so crisp and moves so well ,none of the character feel cartoonish if that makes any sense none of them have that zany energy that alot of animated movies seem to give their characters the movements here while at times can be zany are mostly grounded in some form of reality and that works for this film in my opinion.

SPOILERS START HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                       

Everyone agrees that the saddest moment in UP is in the first ten minuets and in my opinion this film could have had a moment on this scale at the end of the film when Barley is having a conversation with his dad. However we never hear what the conversation is and so what could have been a highly emotional moment and judging by how the character is acting is indeed that we just feel nothing which is a shame because it could have been a great emotional moment. 

There is a kind of moment like the one from UP near the start of the film where the character of Ian has a conversation with his dead dad via a lost tape that Ian finds but to me it's not that effective just because we don't know the character of Ian. It's a scene that could have been really effective if it was done near the end of the film instead of near the start of the film but like I said it's not a bad scene but it could have been better.

Even tho the main plot does involve the father the real focus of the story is the relationship between the two brothers. Which is something that i've not seen PIXAR or even Disney for that matter take on and it's something that really does work to this films advantage since over the course of the film we find out that even tho Ian didn't get to know his dad he got to do all of the things that you'd want to do with your dad with his big brother and the two sort of have a father and son type bond at the end because of it which is generally heartwarming to see.

What should have happened in the films third act or even in the prolog happens in the films second act and that's the fact that Ian can't drive on a motorway / high/freeway. If they held that off until the end of the film it would have been the perfect way to cap of his characters arc of him learning not to be afraid of everything but they do it near the start of the second act and so the scene doesn't have that much of an effect and instead acts like it was just a small hurdle in the film and I know that it's a small thing to mention but if you don't mention the small things then you won't know how they effect the bigger things in any film not just animated films but films in general.

Now as you guys all know I very rarely mention if the film features a gay character but alot of news sites have been mentioning that this film features a gay character and the scene that features the character in question is getting pulled for the release in Russia. If i'm being honest this was a waste of the character because she's only in one scene and the scene adds nothing to the overall story which is a shame because they look like they might be starting a plot with her but nothing happens with that character at all.

Now then since this is a comedy that does mean that we have to talk about the jokes that are in the film. The jokes are honestly not that bad they did get a few laughs out of me especially with the dad who is just a pair of legs for the whole film and i'm shocked that they got as much mileage out of that setup as they did since they do alot of jokes with the dad and all of them are funny but there are also some jokes that just aren't funny in my opinion.

SPOILERS END HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now believe it or not the film is kind of in some controversy because someone by the name of Sweet Cecily Daniher a tattoo artist from San Francisco has filed a copyright lawsuit regarding the design used on the side of the van. Now as of this writing the suit hasn't been settled and so is still on going but it seems a bit stupid to me that someone would sue over a design on the side of a van especially since there are most likely hundreds of other people using that same design.

Overall this isn't the worst film that PIXAR have released but it's also not their best film either which is a shame because the potential was there for it to be good. I don't think i'm the only one who was more looking forward to Soul then this film but hey at least we're getting two PIXAR films this year which is always a good thing since they are a great studio and even there terrible films at least look visually stunning as for this film tho it gets a 7 out of 10 from me.