Critic Reviews

Pixar returns with a great big power-chord of a movie — heart-pumping, resonant, and positively harmonious.

The style and tone of writer-director Dan Scanlon’s movie has elements of DreamWorks’ “Shrek” and “How To Train Your Dragon” mixed with the siblings-with-secrets aspects of Disney’s “Frozen.” But Onward is better for the change-up. That stylistic and narrative departure gives us Pixar’s most heartfelt story in years.

You expect excellence from Pixar, and excellence is what they deliver in Onward.

It’s colorful and charming, and it’s certainly unique in its story specifics. But it also feels safe, simple, and soft-edged compared to Pixar’s wilder swings for the outfield.

Beneath the bro-friendly, fantasy-art trappings, Onward finds a little bit of that old Pixar magic.

Onward may be middle-of-the-pack Pixar but it’s still a real pleasure.

Onward is a touching, lovingly crafted oddity — a movie that acknowledges its borrowed elements at the outset and then proceeds to reinvigorate them with tried-and-true Pixar virtues: sly wit, dazzling invention and a delicacy of feeling that approaches the sublime.

The animation is spellbinding as Onward builds into a galloping adventure full of amusement, excitement and enchantment.

You don't really know what the movie is truly about until the third act. For some, that might be a lengthy journey you don't want to take. But for many, it's an emotional adventure — full of touching moments and captivating visuals — that's well worth the wait.

Onward doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but spins it so well that it conjures a spell of its own as a new decade dawns with the Pixar touch intact.