Review: "Onward"

“Magic was real but faded away” is a central theme of most fantasy fiction, from “The Hobbit” on down. Ours was once a world of elves and dragons and unicorns, until technology took over, the magic was forgotten and things got boring.

If only we could recall the wonderment…

“Onward,” the new animated film from the Disney/Pixar, starts from an interesting halfway point. In its universe blue-skinned elves, massive trolls, pixies and other fantastic beasts rule the land instead of humans. But they also misplaced the magic and things grew dull. Until, that is.

The movie is basically a Dungeons & Dragons campaign with a mix of modern and medieval elements. Two elven brothers, Ian and Barley Lightfoot, receive a magic staff from their long-dead father. Cast the spell of “visitation” and dad will return from the afterlife for one day to spend with his sons.

Things go awry and only half of their father reappears -- the bottom half. They’re able to tap out some basic communications with feet but it’s not terribly satisfying. So their quest is to recover a rare Phoenix Gem so they can finish the spell and get their special day to bond.

Ian (voice by Tom Holland), just turned 16, is the shy and awkward kid. Dad died while he was a baby so he has no memory of him at all. His older brother, Barley (Chris Pratt), is twice his size and has 10 times the confidence, tooling around in a beater van he calls Guinevere and an ardent fan of Quests of Yore, the movie’s barely disguised stand-in for D&D.

Ian clearly needs to be more adventurous, while if anything Barley could stand to tone things down a bit. Their mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) quips about Barley setting a record for longest “gap year.” It’s not hard to envision that in a few blinks Barley could become that boisterous middle-aged guy you see in the hobby shop who has lots of passion but no career or family.

Directed by Dan Scanlon (“Monsters University”) from an original script he wrote along with Jason Headley and Keith Bunin, “Onward” has plenty of cleverness and nice throwaway jokes, like the road gang of surly pixies. (Another favorite: unicorns are omnipresent, bedraggled pests that raid your garbage like raccoons.)

They even make a joke about how these types of movies always have a missing parent, by giving us half of one -- and not the meaningful bit.

I liked Octavia Spencer as the Manticore, a once-famous adventurer who now runs a cheesy tourist trap and had to sell her legendary sword, the Curse Crusher, because of tax trouble. She gets around to lending a hand, once the karaoke machine is fixed. Mel Rodriguez voices Colt Bronco, a cop centaur who’s dating the brothers’ mom in between flinging off crusty jokes.

Of course, there is the obligatory “life lessons” stuff that every animated movie aimed at kids seems required to have. (Can’t it ever just be, “Watch a really good story and enjoy yourself”?) Here it’s about cherishing your family and what you have, even as you strive for something more.

It seems Ian is a natural at being a wizard, and with Barley’s help he gradually begins to master each spell in the Quests of Lore manual. If only this were true, I would’ve fireballed my algebra teacher long ago.

Recently my sons and I started playing D&D, or at least our version of it. I haven’t played since the 1980s and don’t remember the rules very well. We take turns being dungeon master, and basically we just tell each other stories and roll a few dice to resolve conflicts.

There’s a refreshing simplicity to “Onward.” (Not to mention being the first non-sequel Pixar feature in three years.) It’s an agreeable middling Disney cartoon feature, and  kids will undoubtedly enjoy the spells and wondrous critters. (‘Ware the gelatinous cube!)

 I won’t say it heralds the return of the missing magic, but there are plenty of sparks and few enough fizzles.

Video review: "Queen & Slim"

Angela and Earnest only had one date together, but it lasted six days and left an enduring legacy.

That's the story of "Queen & Slim," a powerful drama starring Jodie Turner-Smith and Daniel Kaluuya in a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde tale with overtones of race, power and regret. It's not based on a true story, but has the weight of authenticity as they flee the authorities as virtual strangers and become soulmates along the way.

The movie begins with an all-too-familiar anecdote: a young black couple are driving at night when they are stopped by police on flimsy grounds. The officer (Sturgill Simpson), twitchy and white, orders them around and overreacts to Earnest's complaint that it's cold standing outside while the cop fruitless searches his trunk. Things escalate, shots are fired, and soon they're on the run, labeled as cop-killers.

The movie, directed by Melina Matsoukas from a script by Lena Waithe, diverges from a typical crime potboiler. Angela and Earnest, or Queen and Slim as they come to be known, are not in a relationship. They just finished their first date after meeting on Tinder, and frankly it didn't go very well. He was condescending, she was abrasive, and without intervention they likely never would've seen each other again.

Angela is also a criminal defense attorney, which you'd think would compel her to stop, surrender and let the system of law in which she operates take over. But no -- she knows all too well how the courts are rigged against African-Americans, and it's she who insist they flee.

Eventually they become a media sensation, dubbed Queen and Slim, carrying authorities on a chase from Ohio to Louisiana and Florida. Initially traumatized by their situation, they gradually embrace the experience and their roles as outlaw icons.

At one point Slim asks a young boy to take their photograph in front of their getaway car. They have traded in their looks of benign young professionals for street clothes from her uncle (Bokeem Woodbine), a hostile New Orleans pimp, and look very much the part of hardened criminals. This picture becomes a lesson in how an image can be distorted through its proliferation in pop culture.

I admired the way the filmmakers never quite join in the celebration of the duo, understanding that many of their actions are wrong, and that people have varying reactions to them according to their own beliefs. A black mechanic who fixes their car is indifferent, even contemptuous, while a rich middle-aged white couple (Chloe Sevigny and Flea) offer life-saving help even as they regret the uprising of anger left in their wake.

"Queen & Slim" is both angry and sorrowful, suspenseful and lyrical. We travel along with these two, feeling their sense of doom with every mile. We are hesitant to cheer or condemn them, but just wish their journey would keep going.

Bonus features are ample, starting with a feature-length audio commentary track by Matsoukas and Waithe -- two (or more) are always better than one with these. There are also four making-of documentary shorts:

• "A Deeper Meaning," looking at the film's themes and reverberations
• "Melina & Lena," about the two primary principle creatives
• "Off the Script," showing the evolution of the screenplay from first draft to final
• "On the Run with Queen & Slim," a travelogue of the settings and behind-the-scenes action

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Video review: "Ready Player One"

Many of us are living significant chunks of our lives inside virtual spaces these days, probably without even noticing. Example: My son and I have been co-playing a fantasy war game on our phones, bonding over downing gruesome beasties and recruiting an especially powerful new hero. I’d defy anyone to label it anything other than a positive shared experience.

But there is a downside to constructed realities in general and video games specifically, one that “Ready Player One” explores in the form of a dystopian future where most of the important reactions happen inside the Oasis, a virtual reality where people can pretend to be just about anything.

Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) is a high school senior living in poverty -- both in the real world, where he resides in stacks of trailer homes, and in the Oasis where he plays a low-level nobody named Parzival. But there is a grand contest going on, put on by the deceased co-creator of this world, and the winner gets to control the entire Oasis.

Needless to say, some corporate bad guys are gaming the game to try to get an advantage. Ben Mendelsohn plays the CEO of a conglomerate that is flooding the system with anonymous players called Sixers all working in conjunction to win the booty. But the whole world is upended when humble Parzival manages to unlock the first door.

Soon an all-out war is brewing. Wade finds allies in Aech (Lena Waithe), his longtime friend and running buddy, as well as Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), a legendary player that he has been harboring a crush on. All the legions will gather to do battle.

Like a lot of director Steven Spielberg’s more popcorn-y movies, “Ready Player One” is a visually dazzling picture that’s a lot of fun, but also hides some hefty themes just under the surface.

In the Oasis people can do stuff that’s straight out of a 14-year-old’s daydream -- Parzival races the DeLorean from “Back to the Future” in a smash-and-dash race, for instance. But they also spend much of their lives wearing VR headsets and suits, eschewing the dank corporeal world for one filled with pleasures and eye candy. I don’t think it’s accidental that whenever the filmmakers pull us out of the Oasis to see what’s going on in the RL (real life), the movie’s energy takes a dip.

Based on the novel by Ernest Cline, who co-wrote the script with Zak Penn, “Ready Player One” is an entertaining movie that also shows us the dark side of the entertainment machine.

Video extras are decent, though not as lavish as you’d expect from a big-budget Spielberg picture. They consist of six making-of documentary shorts:

• “Game Changer: Cracking the Code”
• “Effects for the Brave New World”
• “Level Up: Sound for the Future”
• “High Score: Endgame”
• “Ernie & Tye’s Excellent Adventure”
• “The ‘80s: You’re the Inspiration”

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Review: "Ready Player One"

I’ve been playing video games for 40 years, so it’s no surprise I would truly dig a book that’s about them, and the movie they made of the book -- from director Steven Spielberg, no less, a filmmaker who’s always been plugged into the pop culture of the day.

The Oasis in “Ready Player One” is essentially every video game rolled into one. Based on the novel by Ernest Cline, who co-wrote the screenplay with Zak Penn, the story is set in a dystopian future in the year 2045, where life on Earth is hell and all meaningful interactions take place in the virtual world of the Oasis. People wear VR goggles, gloves and other gear to act out their dreams.

Think of it as Star Trek, Dungeons & Dragons and World of Warcraft all rolled into one -- along with every creature or gadget from every science fiction/fantasy film ever made.

There, you can do almost anything you can dream of: live as an 8-foot-tall ogre cyborg, drive the DeLorean from the “Back to the Future” movies… even fall in love.

But the Oasis has a downside. It’s become the center of world economy, which means it’s a ripe target for those who would exploit it for their own gain, like Innovative Online Industries, or IOI. They’re swarming the grid with their drone-like army of avatars, known as Sixers, to solve the riddles left by creator James Halliday (Mark Rylance) after this death, which will lead the finder of three keys to the mother of all Easter Eggs.

The prize? Nothing less than control of the Oasis itself.

Though it differs from the book in myriad ways, small and huge, “Ready Player One” is still a dazzlingly entertaining movie that also nudges its audience to consider the weight of their own existence in RL (gamer lingo for “real life”). As fantastical as this world is, we’re left with the conclusion that nobody should spend all their time wrapped up in a comfortable cocoon spun out of technology.

The story brings together a band of young freedom fighters waging war against the tyranny of IOI and its conniving leader, Nathan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn). To get a flavor of his M.O., in one scene Sorrento cheerfully informs his corporate board that once they take over the Oasis, they believe they can fill players’ visual fields with advertising up to 80% “before inducing seizures.”

Chief among the rebels is Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), a humble teenager who goes by the handle Parzival in the Oasis, taking the form of an androgynous, albino-haired punk. His best friend is Aech (pronounced “H”), the aforementioned ogre, who’s the fun-loving, self-assured yin to Parzival’s dweeby yang.

The most famous “Sixer Fixer” in the Oasis is Art3mis, an elf-like warrior played by Olivia Cooke. Parzival and Aech soon join forces with her, with Wade predictably falling in love with the avatar of someone who, as Aech points out, could very well by a 300-pound dude from Detroit.

Like James Cameron’s “Avatar,” most of the prime action in the movie plays out in a CGI dreamscape, punctuated by occasional returns to the “real” world, which is dank and grim. There’s so much to see and take in, and so many little Easter eggs and pop culture references, you’d have to rewind and freeze-frame the movie to catch them all.

(My personal favorite: the chant used for an important spell is the same used in 1981’s “Excalibur.”)

There’s no way the filmmakers could have obtained the intellectual rights to all the bits of pop culture stuffed into Cline's book, most of it hearkening back to the 1980s and '90s, so they swap them out with other ones, or invent new stuff entirely. I was a little bummed we didn’t get to see Ultraman make a pivotal appearance, though his replacement isn’t exactly mincemeat.

Cline and Penn also significantly alter and truncate the actual quest line in the book, making the three keys themselves the object rather than the gates they open. (Probably a wise choice, as it could easily have pushed an already long movie to the three-hour mark.)

For example, things start off with a slam-bang road race, rather than a very RPG (role-playing game) descent into a classic D&D module that must seem like dim history to Millennials.

“Ready Player One” is part computer-generated thrill ride, part Luddite warning, and all Spielbergian nostalgia adventure. Insert your quarter -- er, about 40-50 of them, at today’s ticket prices -- and get ready for a gleeful romp in the ultimate video game playground.