Onward

There's a lot to like in Onward, the least of which is its bright, appealing animation, character design and world building, but you wouldn't expect anything less from an outfit as accomplished as Pixar.

The second half pulled it together. By the end of it, I was like, "well done."

Onward feels a bit more subdued than a typical Pixar affair, and while the movie wears its heart on its sleeve, it might not be quite as engaging for younger viewers.

Do families need fathers? Scanlon delivers a love song to atypical clans, which couldn't end on a sweeter, or clearer, note.

The fractious bond between the brothers and their aching anger at the loss of a parent are evoked with exquisite sorrow and clarity.

Scanlon's film is an improvement on his previous directorial effort, the pointless prequel Monsters University. But Onward falls well short of magical.

To be honest it is kind of unexpected that Pixar would deliver a film that seems to have a Gothic edge while embracing the quirkiness of a film like Planet 51, but they have and it works wonderfully well.

…Onward is a very neat little animation that skews towards teens rather than kids, and pushes the Pixar envelope in an unexpectedly serious direction…

The idea of magic being mostly faded away by technology is good, but it never really takes that much advantage of that idea.

It has an entertaining start that finds its point in the solid animation and dubbing work, but, unlike other works from the Pixar, its urban fantasy adventure loses the magic and sense of fun along the same generic routes. [Full review in Spanish]