It is now clear to everyone that in its 25 years (which will be completed on November 19) in the panorama of animation and non-animation cinema, the Pixar has earned a reputation as the most intellectual production house in the world. It is enough to see how with his filmography (starting from the Toy Story phenomenon and with very few exceptions) he has challenged conventions and clichés on animation cinema, treated pressing issues with great lightness and intelligence and reached levels of narrative and artistic excellence.
Onward: Beyond magic, the highly anticipated new Pixar film falls into the (small) category of the less daring or non-visionary films of the Emeryville studio, but not for this not worthy of praise as were Brave (2012), Oscar winner for the best animated film , or the prequel to Monsters & Co. (2001), Monster University (2013) directed by Dan Scanlon, not surprisingly the director of this latest film.
Magic on the contrary
In a world where the creatures of myth and fairy tales have abandoned magic for technology and the luxuries of modernity, January (in the original version voiced by Tom Holland) a clumsy and insecure young elf, along with his mother Laurel (Julia Louis Dreyfus) and the ever-optimistic metalhead older brother Barley (Chris Pratt), lives in New Mushroomton, a residential neighborhood halfway between the Smurf village (all the houses are mushrooms) and the typical American suburb. For his 80th birthday, Ian receives a gift kept in store by his mother: a wizard's staff and a gem left by his father, who tragically died of cancer before Ian was born. The stone and the stick will allow, through a spell, to bring the parent back to life for a day, but something goes wrong and only the legs of the father return to the world of the living. Ian and his brother set out in search of a new stone capable of completing the spell, in an adventure on the road that winks at the great XNUMXs cinema.
Onward: Beyond the magic is a decidedly nostalgic film, the son of a cinematographic culture (the postmodern one) in which pop culture, the mixture of genres and affectionate references to the cinema of the past dominated. The new Pixar film inherits, for example, the themes of Steven Spielberg's most acclaimed films, such as paternal absence, childhood wonder and the difficulty of growing up, but also the sense of adventure and the power of imagination. But also references to the nerd culture, which in recent years has become decidedly more popular than in the past: beyond the atmosphere of the film, it is impossible not to notice the fantasy tones of the metal music loved by the very nice brother Barley, or the popularity of Quest of Yore, role-playing game that can only echo the phenomenon of Dungeons & Dragons.
Of course, this new Pixar film does not raise the bar either from the point of view of themes and creativity or even from the point of view of animation or character design, but the result remains enjoyable for young and old, and is likely to become for a long time after its theatrical release (April 16 this year) a reference point for fantasy lovers.
