CERTAIN PIXAR FILMS — your WALL●Es and
Inside Outs — change the game. Onward,
the animation studio’s 22nd fi lm, doesn’t do
anything so lofty as pay homage to silent cinema,
or forever change the way we think about
our emotions. It’s not even as tear-jerking as
Toy Story 3 or Coco. But in every way, it’s pure,
perfect Pixar — a fi lm with such warmth,
whip-smart humour and creative energy that it’s
a sheer joy to spend a few hours in its presence.Continuing the studio’s tradition of crafting
fanciful, fantastical worlds — from Monstropolis
to the Land Of The Dead —Onwardgives us
New Mushroomton: a former high-fantasy
kingdom of magic and mythical creatures
that has since become a contemporary,
commercialised town where the inhabitants
— centaurs, fauns, merpeople and more — have
left their mystical heritage behind. Fairies don’t
need to fly anymore. Unicorns have become
bin-raiding rodents. It’s Middle-earth gone
McDonald’s, delivered with the usual Pixar
panache and stuffed with background gags
(look out for dessert parlour ‘Master Froyo’).
Living among it all are elf brothers Ian and
Barley Lightfoot — the former (Tom Holland,
here every bit the pointy-eared Peter Parker),
a gawky high-school inbetweener racked with
adolescent anxiety, and the latter (Chris Pratt,
in Star-Lord-meets-Jack Black mode), a loud,
brash, fantasy-loving slacker with a penchant
for prog rock and a pegasus-painted van named
Guinevere. They’re complete opposites, Ian
desperate to fi t in with his classmates and Barley
longing for the world to reconnect with its
long-forgotten magic.
Neither sibling really remembers their
father, who died before Ian was born and when
Barley was young — but the pair are off ered the
possibility of a brief reunion with him thanks to
a magic staff and crystal that will grant them one
full day together. Of course, the spell doesn’t goON SCREEN
ONWARD
DIRECTORDan Scanlon
CAST (VOICES)Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Julia
Louis-Dreyfus, Octavia SpencerPLOTOn his 16th birthday, elf Ian Lightfoot
(Holland) is gifted a magical artefact from his
mother (Louis-Dreyfus) that will allow him and
older sibling Barley (Pratt) to spend one day
with the late father he never got to meet. When
the spell goes wrong, the brothers set off on
a fantasy quest to try it again.OUTNOW
★★★★★ CERTPG/107 MINS[FILM]
Corey the manticore
(Octavia Spencer) in the
Manticore’s Tavern.Ian, with half of his
dad, gets introspective
as time runs out.