Onward

"We’re watching it now, but I know there’s nothing can save this bargain basement, banal, thoroughly average movie. It’s a movie about having heart and believing in oneself and love, but it has none of it. It’s not the crass money grab that Cars 2 or Toy Story 4 were. But that may be worse, because those movies were honest in their worthlessness. This is just ... average. Mediocre. Ordinary. Unmemorable. And for Pixar, that’s a shame." That was my original review, and thanks to having kids, I've now seen this movie several times over. When I first reviewed it, I didn't have a general objection to Onward, just a general "seen it before and better" feeling. And I still stand by that. Nothing about Onward strikes as original, aside from the pseudo-fantasy/D&D-inspired setting. This tale of finding what you think you were missing right beside you the whole time is as time-tested and battle-worn as it gets. It's the basis for every rom-com about two friends who realize they should be lovers, and a tangential version can be seen in every mismatched buddy cop movie. But upon my latest rewatch, I finally zoomed in on what really strikes me so wrong about the movie. It boils down to two things. First, the crux of the story: Ian's quest to get one day with his dad to experience all the things he never did, only to find that his older brother Barley was the surrogate dad who did those things with him after all. It's sweet, it's sentimental, but it is also grossly unfair. An older brother is an older brother, not a surrogate father. A sibling is only a fractional step away from a peer. A parent is not a peer, ever. The emotional dishonesty here, of saying a brother is a replacement for a father just because he completed a checklist doesn't sit well with me. Playing catch with one's brother or learning to shave from dad is not the same as doing so with a father. It trivializes familial relationships to nothing more than a to-do list that anybody can fulfill. If it stopped there, I'd already have enough grievance to give Onward a middling review, but the second problem cannot be ignored, and that is how crappy Ian and Barley are as individuals. One might almost be inclined to forgive some of Ian's faults, as he is still on the younger side and still has growing to do. I am not that person; young characters can have emotional issues and growth ahead of them and still be well-rounded characters with depth and complexity. Coming-of-age stories are full of characters whose off-putting exteriors are fronts; Mean Girls and The Breakfast Club are full of characters who, at first glance, are annoying, but who hide intricacies behind their behavior. Ian is not like this. He is a self-centered, narcissistic, whiny brat. He is wholly defined by the imagined past he did not have and his resentment for not getting it. Again, you might be tempted to think that the point of Onward is his journey from this to a more well-rounded person, but to do that, there has to be some bread crumbs laid out to make Ian sympathetic, so when he shows that growth, we feel rewarded for going on the journey. Onward doesn't do that leg work, so when Ian is a whole different person at the end, it doesn't feel earned. It feels like a mandate of the plot. The same issue plagues Barley. He is a stunted man-child and a blundering doofus. He is in no way, shape, or form shown to be a responsible adult or a decent role model. Time and again, his caution-to-the-wind recklessness puts him and Ian in mortal jeopardy. That he's willing to risk his own life to save his brother in the climax doesn't erase the fact it is Barley's stupid ideas that got them in that position in the first place. There's a scene where Barley gets upset about being looked at as an idiot, saying that Ian never lets him prove he can be smart. Problem is, NONE OF HIS IDEAS WORK. At best, they fall ass-backwards into success in spite of Barley's plans, so no, Barley, you shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt. You haven't earned it. Onward then makes this even more insulting by having Ian become more like Barley in the end, as if "freewheeling dingus" is a position of aspiration. If you get some kind of warm-fuzzy from Onward, hey, good for you. Some may read this and think I'm looking too in depth at a kid's movie. But I would counter that train of thought with this: this is Pixar's own fault. They set the bar this high, by showing us one of the purest love stories in Wall-E, by making every adult watch their childhood die in Toy Story 3, and by showing us the strength of family in The Incredibles. Time and time again, Pixar didn't settle for their movies just being movies for kids; they tackled complex themes and difficult emotions and put them on the screen in ways kids could handle without feeling talked down to, and adults could appreciate on another level. Onward fails to hit that bar, not because of the concept, but because of the execution. It gives the audience the worst characters to get these themes across, corrupting the core idea and making it feel as bog-standard as Pixar's competitors in the animated movie market. This is the kind of simplistic dreck I'd expect from Illumination, complete with a dance number at the end, not from animation's premier studio.