BEFORE: I've made great progress this year getting to the animated films category, I tackled a week's worth of animated DC superhero films in January, plus the two "Nut Job" films, then once the annual romance chain was over I crossed off "Leap!" and "Ferdinand" in March, then I circled back in May for another 7 animated films, like "Frozen 2", "Tarzan 2" and "The Secret Life of Pets 2". That didn't leave much behind, except for unlinkables like "The Red Turtle" and the CGI "Lion King". I'll have to get to those later, but since the ones left don't link together, I've got to drop them in-between the live-action films if I'm ever going to get to them.
This one had the advantage of not only linking between two films about fathers, but also (I believe) fitting in thematically, so I moved it up on the list for "Whenever" to "Umm, How about Next Week?" Now, this means I'll have to drop one of the other films I had planned for June, but that's easily narrowed down to two choices. I'll talk more about this in a couple days - just know that once I drop that film, I'm back on schedule.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus carries over from "Fathers' Day".
THE PLOT: Two elven brothers embark on a quest to bring their father back for one day.
AFTER: I'm not sure that I completely buy the premise here, which is that there's a magical land somewhere, post-Middle Earth or something, where magic existed once, only it was very hard to access, and once these creatures discovered fossil fuels that were much easier to access, nearly everybody just somehow forgot how to use magic or be magical. Well, umm, OK, but then there are still things like centaurs and manticores and pixies, and they still HAVE all of their magical abilities, but they choose to, what, ignore them? It's a cute idea that doesn't completely work. There are also games like Dungeons & Dragons, only they're based on history, not fantasy. But if everybody KNOWS that the magical things in these games were once real, then they haven't really forgotten, have they? So on some level it's a conscious choice to NOT think about magical things or use their own abilities most of the time? Again, cute, but also clunky, clunky, clunky.
I'm trying to think of a real-world equivalent, and the only thing I can think of is painting. Back in the Renaissance you couldn't throw a rock without hitting an artist, even if not all of them were very good. We still remember a few of them today, typically the best ones, but there were probably hundreds, thousands of them who never amounted to much - because what the hell else was there to do back then but paint? Right up until the 1700's and 1800's, there were painters all over the place, even if the styles changed dramatically over time, museums are still filled with the greater and lesser works of Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Degas, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Van Eyck and so on. But name one famous painter today, and that charlatan Thomas Kinkaide doesn't count. Neither does Bob Ross. I'm sure there are great painters around today, but there will never be much need for them, thanks to photography. Suddenly painters weren't needed as much after we had cameras - painted portraits seem unnecessary now, except for offical portraits of world leaders. The process of painting is much like the magic portrayed in "Onward", people still kind of know it's there, but it's not considered necessary any more, not when you've got a job and a couple of hobbies and you're planning that trip and looking for new games to play on your phone.
Anyway, Ian and Barley Lightfoot are a couple of elven brothers, and when Ian turns 16, their mother gives them a gift left behind by their deceased father, part of which is a spell that will bring him back to life for one day, so that he can see how well his sons grew up. (Barley has a few childhood memories of their father, but Ian was younger and doesn't remember him at all.). Although Barley believes in magic, he has no ability to cast the spell, but Ian's got "the gift", only doesn't really know how to use it, so they only bring their father halfway back. Unfortunately, it's the lower half, the spell only brings back his legs and, umm, well, everything below the waist, let's just leave it there. Now, a couple of NITPICK POINTS here about this whole process, like if Mr. Lightfoot doesn't have a brain, then what's controlling the legs? How does he recognize his son's signature "drum-tap" on his foot if his head isn't there to process that rhythm? I know, somehow "it's MAGIC" is supposed to take care of this, and to a certain extent it does, but you just know I'm not going to be satisfied with that, right?
The Phoenix Gem that brought their father (half-)back gets used up in the spell, so the two teens drive to a mythical tavern to seek out the Manticore, who might be able to direct them to another Phoenix Gem. There's a lot of mythical quest stuff that gets cribbed from D&D here (and D&D itself cribbed a lot of stuff from Tolkien) but in the end every quest is the same - go to the tavern, seek out a map, begin the perilous quest along the dangerous route, after your arduous journey, find the magic object, defeat the evil power, gain the treasure. And what we have here is a combination of "every" quest movie mixed with mythology that's half LOTR and half "Shrek"-like fantasyland. Plus it's two mismatched individuals on a buddy comedy road trip - just like "Fathers' Day" (and "Due Date", and "The Guilt Trip", etc. etc.)
But there's a bunch of new stuff in here, too, like all the spells that Ian learns to cast along the way (shit, that's probably all cribbed from "Harry Potter", never mind...) but hey, there are also centaurs and pixies and the good news is that the mythical fairyland is now racially diverse and LGBTQ friendly, so that's something, right? And the boys drive this kick-ass van with cool 1970's graphics of a unicorn on it! (Shit, wasn't there something in the news about Disney/Pixar hiring somebody's cool unicorn van for a party, and then blatantly ripping off that van's unicorn design for this film?). OK, OK, so there's nothing new under the sun, but at least this film puts all those old things together in a new way. The Fantasy Land here is just like ours, they have fast-food joints and highways and smartphones and convenience stores that sell cheesy poofs, the only difference is that there are no humans, just elves and pixies and unicorns and, umm, ogres? I'll admit had a tough time identifying all of the different creatures that live in this PC ethnically diverse fairyland.
That's because there's no time! We're off on a quest! The spell wears off in 24 hours so if we want to bring back the other half of Mr. Lightfoot we've got to hurry and drive north for some reason! And follow the map that we found on the back of the children's menu placemat at the tavern! And meanwhile Mom's got to race to find the Manticore, too, and race to find her sons because they don't know about the curse, and the magic guardian that protects the thing! Umm, we think.
I liked the Manticore character - this is somebody who DOES remember the way things used to be in the age of magic. Perhaps she lives a lot longer than other mythical creatures, but she's fallen on hard times, had to sell that magical sword a few years back, had to turn the tavern where everybody meets to start their quest into something like a family restaurant, with a karaoke machine and crayons for the kids to use while they're waiting for their griffin nuggets. After seeing that one kid's birthday party too many, it pushes her over the edge and makes her realize what she's become, and how far she's fallen. The pixies are a close second, they became a bunch of leather-wearing bikers who forgot how to use their wings, and instead of riding tiny motorcycles, they work in tandem to drive regular-size motorcycles, which seems a lot more difficult than, say, flying with wings.
Anyway, I was right to program this one so close to Father's Day, because it gives the perspective of two characters who have lost their father, and all the emotions that come along with that. And probably anyone who's lost a parent would do anything to have some sense of closure, or to have that one more day with someone who's passed on, just to say the things they should have said, if only they'd known it was their last chance to say them. Even though you know that's impossible, it's still something that you might want - and how far would you go to try and get that?
On top of all the sentiment, there are like a hundred little in-jokes and Easter eggs here, which we've come to expect from Pixar. Barley's van has a bumper sticker that reads "You shall not pass" and the local Burger Shire has a sign that reads "Now serving 2nd breakfast." And if you freeze-frame the menu/placemat in the tavern, you'll see they serve sodas called "Mt. Doom" and "Mt. Mist" instead of Mountain Dew and Sierra Mist. Some of this is the sort of stuff you might see on signs at your local Renaissance Faire, but some of it also rises above that humor level. And yeah, this movie borrows heavily from everything, like "Indiana Jones" and "Weekend at Bernie's", but at least it blends all that together in something akin to a new way.
This film had its theatrical run cut short, because the Covid-19 pandemic shut all the theaters down just a few weeks into its run - but it's up on Disney Plus and some of the other streaming services too. That's technically both a bad thing and a good thing, fewer people got to see it in the theaters but now more people are able to see it sooner via streaming.
Also starring the voices of Tom Holland (last seen in "The Lost City of Z"), Chris Pratt (last seen in "What's Your Number?"), Octavia Spencer (last seen in "The Shape of Water"), Mel Rodriguez (last seen in "Overboard" (2018)), Kyle Bornheimer (last seen in "Marriage Story"), Lena Waithe (last seen in "Ready Player One"), Ali Wong (last seen in "Father Figures"), Grey Griffin (last heard in "Tarzan & Jane"), Tracey Ullman (last seen in "Love, Gilda"), Wilmer Valderrama (last seen in "Larry Crowne"), George Psarras, John Ratzenberger (last heard in "Coco").
RATING: 8 out of 10 parking tickets
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