New on DVD: 'Onward'

"Onward": Tribune News Service film critic Katie Walsh says this animated adventure from Disney/Pixar, finally brings mainstream representation to a group previously relegated to the margins of popular culture: the fantasy-obsessed metalhead. Chris Pratt voices older bro Barley, a burly chap (or elf, rather) in a battle vest with an affinity for all things Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, or rather, the generically branded versions. In his trusty steed Guinevere, an old purple van airbrushed with a mighty Pegasus, Barley blasts sweet heavy metal tunes about wizards and beasts and magic. Barley is a blast.

This isn't Barley's story, though he's an integral part. This is the story of his younger brother, Ian (Tom Holland), a shy young elf who discovers that he does, indeed, have a little magic in him.

Walsh writes that "Onward" contains potentially the most morbid example of the Disney dead parents trope, which they've relied on for decades. Dead parents have been the easy shortcut right to emotional stakes for the young characters. But "Onward" embodies this ever-present longing for a lost loved one, as Ian and Barley drag their father's sentient legs around with them on their quest.

Despite that, Walsh says "Onward" plucks all the right heartstrings to produce many laughs and many tears.

"Emma": Autumn De Wilde, a music video director, makes her feature debut with "Emma," adapted from Jane Austen's novel by Eleanor Catton. Tribune News Service film critic Katie Walsh says that de Wilde deploys everything at her disposal to execute an expertly choreographed and designed film highlighting the arch artifice of aristocratic culture and behavior in Regency England.

Every cinematic element, including cinematography by Christopher Blauvelt, costumes by Oscar...