We round up the reviews for Pixar’s latest release featuring the voices of Chris Pratt and Tom Holland.
The Guardian: *** “There’s a fair bit of wit and fun, and some tender moments, although the attitude towards death isn’t nearly as radically powerful as it was in the 2017 Pixar/Disney classic Coco.”
The New York Times: “Given the movie’s nostalgia for bygone eras and analog game-playing, “Onward” might have shown more nerve if it had been a rare foray from Pixar into hand-drawn animation. As it is, the film is a brightly rendered, sentimental ode to adolescence that hits all the right emotional buttons, even as it risks being forgotten itself.”
The Independent: **** “It’s impressive that a world as self-consciously silly as the one in Onward, with its rows of mushroom houses plagued by trash-scavenging unicorns, can still support meaningful, often painful conversations about loss.”
Consequence of Sound: “Again, texturally sound, but never anything but predictably designed. And perhaps the story, and the characters, are what fails to enchant.”
The Telegraph: **** “Onward may be middle-of-the-pack Pixar but it’s still a real pleasure – a fantasy quest story, flagging incorrigibly how they all work, set in a magic kingdom where the magic has died.”
Empire: ***** “in every way, it’s pure, perfect Pixar — a film with such warmth, whip-smart humour and creative energy that it’s a sheer joy to spend a few hours in its presence.”
Vox.com: “Death is natural, and loss comes to us all. We know that, and we can explain it, and the older we get, the more we accept that it’s just a fact of life. But a movie like Onward gives us a moment to pause, to sit with our feelings, and then to feel some hope for the future.”
The Times: **** “Bottom line, you will cry. It’s a given. I saw this at a packed early-morning screening at the 1,600-seater Potsdamer Platz Palast cinema in Berlin during the city’s film festival and, as the movie ended, the vast chamber was filled with a cacophony of snotty snuffles and heartbroken handkerchief honking, mixed with a handful of audible sobs.”
Onward is out in cinemas now.