Onward: Bumpy journey

Onward (2020) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, for fantasy peril
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.6.20

Despite the traditional Pixar gloss — their films always look spectacular — Onward

is oddly dissatisfying.

Even though the clock is ticking, Barley, left, and Ian enjoy an unexpected moment of
levity with their partly resurrected father.

Director Dan Scanlon moves things along at an engaging pace, with a savvy blend of drama and humor; the voice talent brings agreeable emotional weight to a plot that focuses on the importance of family bonds.

But the story itself — by Scanlon, Jason Headley and Keith Bunin — is something of a mess. More critically, it’s not the slightest bit innovative.

The best Pixar films — Monsters, Inc., The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E and Inside Out leap to mind — are built from audaciously clever concepts and unique twists: deviously fresh ways of employing unusual characters to impart gentle lessons about the human condition. Onward, alas, merely mimics existing pop culture, rather than forging its own path.

The elements are not only overly familiar; they’re also assembled clumsily. Nothing new here … and, coming from Pixar, that’s disappointing.

Elf Ian Lightfoot (voiced wistfully by Tom "Spider-Man" Holland) lives in an outlying suburban neighborhood of New Mushroomton: populated by sprites, centaurs, gnomes, satyrs, trolls, pixies, unicorns and all manner of creatures from mythology, folklore, fables and fantasy fiction. But the environment is decidedly modern: At some point in the not-so-distant past, a bright spark realized that switching on a newly invented light bulb was much easier than casting a complicated fire spell.

As a result, magic has all but vanished from the land, which — aside from its unusual inhabitants — now resembles a typical human metropolis replete with high schools, freeway traffic jams and callous developers determined to replace historic magical landmarks with multi-story sprawl.

(A “modern” world that has all but eradicated conjuring. How many dozens — hundreds? — of fantasy books and series have been built of this premise? Been there, done that.)

Overboard: Floats delightfully

Overboard (2018) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for suggestive content, mild profanity and fleeting partial nudity
By Derrick Bang

The rule regarding remakes is inviolable: If it won’t be at least as good as the original, don’t bother. Please.

As it happens, writer/directors Bob Fisher and Rob Greenberg’s re-boot of 1987’s Overboard isn’t as good.

Things are about to get unpleasant: Little realizing that he's minutes away from humiliating
her to an unacceptable degree, Kate (Anna Faris) initially is intrigued by the devil-may-care
playboy antics of Leonardo Montenegro (Eugenio Derbez).

It’s better.

For starters, this new version is remarkably faithful to Leslie Dixon’s script for the original film, down to the setting in fictitious Elk Cove, Oregon. (Filming actually took place in picturesque Steveston and Fort Langley, British Columbia.) The key plot beats are retained, allowing for minor shifts here and there. The stroke of genius, however, is the gender flip: It allows for entirely new levels of humor derived from droll pokes at traditional masculinity.

Adding a cultural element to the mix also brings creative opportunities for hilarity.

And while it’s refreshing to see Anna Faris in a romantic comedy that doesn’t rely on eye-rolling moron humor, she has to work hard to keep up with co-star Eugenio Derbez, who’s no less than a force of nature. He pretty much blows her off the screen. Although beloved and respected in his native Mexico, his roles in American films have been minor until now.

That’s about to change.

Derbez’s line delivery is sublime; his comic physicality has the fluid grace of a dance impresario. He can be laugh-out-loud funny while standing still ... not that he does much of that, in this well-crafted comedy. The premise was rich back in 1987, and Derbez makes the most of it here; he’s amusing, feisty, endearing or woebegone at the blink of an eye, and he makes you believe each shift, even in a silly comedy such as this.

Events begin with a prologue, as the paterfamilias of the Montenegro family corporate dynasty — Fernando Luján, as Papi — lies in bed, near death. His daughters — the imperious, avaricious Magdalena (Cecilia Suárez) and the meek, artistic Sofia (Mariana Treviño) — are stunned when, following tradition, their father announces that the business empire will be left to their ne’er-do-well brother, Leonardo (Derbez).

The fellow in question is an arrogant, insensitive, spoiled-rotten playboy currently anchored off Elk Cove in his luxurious yacht, which is complete with, respectively, hot and cold running women and champagne.