Onward (Pixar)

Mr E

First teaser trailer. Starring Chris Pratt and Tom Holland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8DKg_fsacM

Dades

That's gonna be great.

pixelburp

Based on equivalent concept, already looks better than Bright

Not used to a Pixar movie flogging star power mind you, big names don't always work with voicework.

Slydice

It's totally a quest!

pixelburp

First trailer and ... yes, we are indeed returning to the well marked "Letting Go of the Dead Parent". Honestly, this is the first Pixar trailer I've watched since... maybe Cars 2 I took an immediate disinterest to. The slow Disney'fication has been slow but inexorable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn5QmllRCn4

Dades

Jeez, that plot has left me disinterested too.

Build a whole new fantastical universe, and shove a worn human trope into it.

Maybe it'll transcend that and be brilliant. Or not.

TheIrishGrover

Hmmmmm.....

I'm not enthused. I hate to say this but it looks like a better-animated Dreamworks movie rather than a top-flight Pixar movie.

JP Liz V1

I believe Tom Holland and Chris Pratt as brothers, great chemistry, I have seen "Frozen for boys" mentioned in a few reviews

santana75

Saw this yesterday evening and it's a decent enough film saved by a great ending. It looks incredible, as you'd expect from Pixar, but at times I found my attention wondering. Pratt and Holland do make a great team though and their chemistry really makes the film. I mean on a scale it's better than toy story 4 but not as good as Coco. The ending does hit the feels hard though which does kinda make up for any dips in the middle section.

cdgalwegian

santana75 wrote: »

Saw this yesterday evening and it's a decent enough film saved by a great ending. It looks incredible, as you'd expect from Pixar, but at times I found my attention wondering. Pratt and Holland do make a great team though and their chemistry really makes the film. I mean on a scale it's better than toy story 4 but not as good as Coco. The ending does hit the feels hard though which does kinda make up for any dips in the middle section.

More or less the same. Took it's time to warm up story-wise, but towards the end, did barrel along, with genuine moments of suspense, and laughs. Not a great fan of fantasy, but for the events of late, thought it might be good for the other half- her verdict: "nice distraction". Spot on.

pixelburp

I dunno, this was very disappointing stuff from Pixar. An utterly rote story whose setting went a little unexplored - though more than "Bright" managed ha - that just about pushed itself into the upper echelons of storytelling at the end. The photorealism of the environments was really jarring against the goofier, Dreamworks adjacent character models. The whole package felt rushed out, thrown together like it was Disney's "do one for us" so Pixar could make its more esoteric and interesting films.

If this was Dreamworks I'd have not batted an eyelid. Being Pixar I expected much more. They're better than this.

Mark Hamill

pixelburp wrote: »

thrown together like it was Disney's "do one for us" so Pixar could make its more esoteric and interesting films.

Going by the trailer, I'm assuming the more esoteric Pixar film is going to be Soul, due out in June.

pixelburp

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Going by the trailer, I'm assuming the more esoteric Pixar film is going to be Soul, due out in June.

It's weird cos were this a DreamWorks film I'd have thought highly of Onward. But knowing Pixar can do so much better made it all a bit disappointing.

johnny_ultimate

TBH I think the classic Pixar titles have been the exception rather than the rule for a fair while now, even going on a decade. They still make mostly good films, but we’re a long way past Peak Pixar when they were producing solid gold consistently. Even The Incredibles 2 - IMO the best of their last five or six movies - was simply a really good ‘more of the same’ sequel than the sort of big, bold efforts Pixar used to make as a rule. Hopefully Soul will be an exception.

Part of the problem is that the studio has stuck fairly rigorously to a certain formulaic type of storytelling. When you look at Ghibli - the other legendary animation studio still making films - they have repeatedly taken artistic risks and made some very, very different movies. Almost all Pixar movies fit snugly into the same tonal and narrative bracket, and as time goes on you can’t help but pine for something fresher.

All that said, I liked Onward well enough considering its obvious limits. I felt aesthetically and conceptually it was pretty uninspired throughout, but did ultimately deliver the sentimental payoffs Pixar does tend to be able to deliver with the requisite skill. Decent comfort food, but they’re definitely capable of bigger and better things

Mark Hamill

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

TBH I think the classic Pixar titles have been the exception rather than the rule for a fair while now, even going on a decade.

I was going to disagree, but then I actually checked their releases and the only classic I can point to of the last 10 years is Inside Out. The rest are at best fine (Incredibles 2, Toy Story 4) to actively bad (Cars 3, Coco).
Compared to the 2000s, where we had Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E and Up almost year after year, it's kind of depressing.

mikhail

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I was going to disagree, but then I actually checked their releases and the only classic I can point to of the last 10 years is Inside Out. The rest are at best fine (Incredibles 2, Toy Story 4) to actively bad (Cars 3, Coco).
Compared to the 2000s, where we had Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E and Up almost year after year, it's kind of depressing.

If you look closely, you can actually see the moment Pixar's heart breaks.

Tipsy McSwagger

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I was going to disagree, but then I actually checked their releases and the only classic I can point to of the last 10 years is Inside Out. The rest are at best fine (Incredibles 2, Toy Story 4) to actively bad (Cars 3, Coco).
Compared to the 2000s, where we had Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E and Up almost year after year, it's kind of depressing.

Coco is a fantastic film.

Tom Mann Centuria

Tipsy McSwagger wrote: »

Coco is a fantastic film.

Yeah, that's right up there with most classic Pixar imo.

BionicRasher

Agree, Coco is one of the best in many years

Cars 3 was a shocker

Mark Hamill

Tipsy McSwagger wrote: »

Coco is a fantastic film.

Tom Mann Centuria wrote: »

Yeah, that's right up there with most classic Pixar imo.

BionicRasher wrote: »

Agree, Coco is one of the best in many years

Cars 3 was a shocker

Coco isn't even the best 'Mexican boy wants to be a musician but family doesn't agree with the life and so somehow ends up in Mexican afterlife to justify his passion' musical animated movie, 2014-2017.

A lot of my hate for it probably does come down to how much I hate the Miguel's voice actor, his voice was an affliction onto the ears, but I don't think the story was good at all and honestly think there was only two good scenes:

Hector singing to his dying friend and Miguel singing to Coco at the end

. It's a lot like Onward in that respect, imo.

B.A._Baracus

Watched it with my girlfriend last night.
She called it frozen just with guys - she made a valid point.
In frozen you have both loosing their parents. In this one the father died. In frozen one has magical abilities. This one the same. Of course anyone could argue why shouldn't they use that template as it was mental successful. Problem is the movie is just alright. Not bad. Not Pixar amazing.

gmisk

This is now on Disney+

Full_Circle_81

Watched it this morning. I thought it was fine, but can't see myself rushing back for repeated viewings. I don't normally notice this, but found the casting of Chris and Tom to be a little distracting. The fact that they went and cast Holland to do his American accent gives me the impression that they only hired him for name recognition.

And like others have said already, I've found Pixars output over the past 10 years or so to be far less vital than it was during is classic run. Recently I've only enjoyed Toy Story 4 and Inside Out enough to buy after watching once. All the rest were passes.

Someone mentioned liking Incredibles 2, I was actually hugely disappointed by it. Unlike other Pixar franchises, the first Incredibles begged for a sequel straight away, but took an insane 14 years to arrive. And when it landed, I think the fact that it picked it nearly straight after the first one made the actual time in between even more jarring.

S.M.B.

Watched it last night and I really liked it but I had very low expectations coming to it so late after the early luke warm reviews.

Probably not quite up there with top tier pixar but fits nicely into that next level below.

gmisk

S.M.B. wrote: »

Watched it last night and I really liked it but I had very low expectations coming to it so late after the early luke warm reviews.

Probably not quite up there with top tier pixar but fits nicely into that next level below.

I would pretty much agree with that.
A step above cars etc but not at the very peak.