Metacritic reviews

Pixar returns with a great big power-chord of a movie — heart-pumping, resonant, and positively harmonious.

Beneath the bro-friendly, fantasy-art trappings, Onward finds a little bit of that old Pixar magic.

Onward doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but spins it so well that it conjures a spell of its own as a new decade dawns with the Pixar touch intact.

Like a highly watchable amalgam of “Field of Dreams,” “Zootopia” and Arthurian legend, the colorful crusade features a solid hero’s journey with a slam-dunk of a finale.

All told, it's a terrifically entertaining tale filled with humor, heart, and allusions that are sure to delight fantasy fans.

Even if the film lags narratively, there’s enough flash and dazzle to keep viewers engaged, with Holland and Pratt providing a genuine balance of sibling love and aspiration for each other.

Onward is a good, but not great Pixar movie, with a heartfelt, if emotionally manipulative storyline, and plenty of film magic to propel it forward.

The animation’s good, lovely but not dazzling.

While Onward begins as a story of bereavement, it soon turns to celebrating the payoffs of positive thinking.

Onward is a decent, well-paced, well-animated, moderately enjoyable film. It’s got a good message, an emotional third act, and some pleasantly surprising jokes. Onward is…OK. The problem with Onward is that Pixar’s original films are incredible. OK is, simply, just not good enough.