Onward

From the first moments, I kinda hated this movie. And then...well, I didn’t exactly grow to like it; more like it got more tolerable as it progressed. While the film’s heart might be in the right place, there are simply too many elements that come across as grating and never really do enough to earn validation by the end. The setting of a magical world populated by fairy tale creatures seems contrived; you can’t help but wonder, while viewing early scenes, if this choice was made for any reason other than the crucial use of magic to make the story work—and that comes across as not very creative, perhaps even lazy, storytelling. Tom Holland’s voice, whiny and and annoying under the best of cinematic circumstances, is like a dentist's drill throughout much of these proceedings. Other elements that have become de rigeur in late-period Disney works only serve to elicit eye rolls here. Simply put, none of this ever truly clicks here; the viewer waits in vain for moments of actual cinematic wizardry. This work, combined with the disappointing production of Toy Story 4 immediately proceeding, marks the real beginning of a steep decline in the quality of Pixar movies, one that has yet to be reversed as of this writing, now four years after this piece made its debut. Geese do not lay golden eggs forever, I guess. Let’s see them try to scare up some movie magic like they used to make; that’s the real quest the studio needs to focus on.