Elf Quest

Pixar’s latest original (as in non-sequel) animated feature is ‘Onward,’ the whimsical and wonderful tale of two unlikely blue-skinned Elf siblings who embark upon a magical quest to bring back their father in a contemporary fantasy world that would please the young and old alike.  Reaching #1 at the box office and making $48 million domestic ($76 million worldwide) in its opening weekend is no mean feat considering that moviegoers have been staying away from theatres thanks to the coronavirus.

 

In the make-believe world of New Mushroomton, Elf brothers Ian and Barley Lightfoot (the former voiced by Spiderman Tom Holland, the latter by Star-Lord Chris Pratt) defies our classical Tolkien-esque concept of an elf because Ian is skinny and has a decidedly large and un-Elfish “Karl Malden” nose while Barley is portly (so is their mom voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and oafish rather than lithe and graceful.   When the socially awkward Ian got a magical wizard’s staff from his mother on his sixteenth birthday and accidentally conjured up half the father he never met, who died before he was born, he and his D&D-playing older brother decided to jump into the latter’s unicorn-muraled van and go on a road-trip to “get the other half.”  While on their quest, they are pursued by their mother Laurel with the help of a manticore (Octavia Spencer) and her (their mother’s) new boyfriend, centaur Colt Bronco (Mel Rodriguez).

 

Light-hearted, filled with warmth and wildly imaginative, ‘Onward’ is brimming with geek-chic and 1980’s-style nostalgia.  It’s also ultimately about brotherly love and family, told through likeable and relatable animated characters inhabiting a colorful and wondrously immersive CG-rendered fantasy world.  Like the Harry Potter movies, I find this film hard to resist.

 

Grade: A