Onward

If you’re looking for a way to kill just under 2 hours and want to leave it feeling mildly fine, this is the movie for you. Onward, as mentioned in my review, is a fun little escape from reality. We get to see magic and creatures and a pari of pants. Above all we get the relationship and Disney knows that.

Where Real Meets Fantasy

As I mentioned in my review, I really enjoyed how we get a combination of both this magical world and what can be interpreted as our world. It’s clearly set in an Earth-adjacent setting. Heck, we start out with ancient forces that are soon taken over and transform into a city with skyscrapers and roads. We see Ian learning to drive. There’s a restaurant with heavy theming. We look at these elements and we can relate. And yet, the characters look different, there’s magic, and the owner of that restaurant is a mythical beast. We’re not thrust fully into a strange land. All fantasy and sci-fi does this. Even movies like Lord of the Rings, we still have humans in there because that’s how we relate. Even just speaking English (or your native language) is enough to connect. Imagine a movie where the characters were not humanoid, they spoke an alien language, they didn’t live somewhere that looked like Earth, essentially there is no connection whatsoever to humanity. Nobody would watch that.

A Pair of Pants

I have to give it to Disney, using a pair of pants is an incredibly clever device. Not only that, they made the pants sentient and they became a character in and of themselves. I can’t think of many other films (or any pieces of media really) that use a sentient piece of clothing as a character. All I can think of is a strange musical play that tells Michael Jackson’s story through the perspective of his gloves (I promise you this is an actual musical). Other than that, I draw a blank on pieces of media that use a piece of clothing so heavily and have it sentient. Please tell me if there’s one that I missed in the comments.

The way Disney personified the pants and actually gave them character is what most impresses me. It’s truly a lesson in non-verbal communication. You can tell when the pants are nervous and when they’re happy. Heck, if you told me that somebody had actually acted out the part of “Pants” I would not be surprised. There is not a single line spoken by the pants, yet we still get this 3-D character that is an integral part of the story.

And yet…

“Onward” is just an OK movie. As mentioned, it’s made for kids so I didn’t expect any serious moments or learning opportunities. The real world/fantasy world has been done before, especially by Disney. Yes the pants are a unique part of the movie but one unique part doesn’t equal a great movie. Everything else in this movie is your standard writers-workshop movie. A good movie night if you have kids, but other than that there’s not much else.

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