Pixar’s Onward is a thoughtful and contemplative adventure fantasy and like Dan Scanlon’s Monsters University, it is mostly a “pretty good” effort with a powerhouse ending, as well as a film that feels like the next generation of Pixar artists working in the shadow of John Lasseter and the original Pixar crew.

But beyond its meta-textual meanings, it is a generally entertaining and visually clever low-stakes comedy about two brothers coming to terms with a grave loss. The film is set in a kind of Bright-ish world where magical creatures and dungeons-and-dragons tropes exist side-by-side with humanoid fantasy people.

Two brothers; Ian Lightfoot (Tom Holland) and Barley Lightfoot (Chris Pratt) lose their dad due to a protracted illness just before Ian is born, a brutal blow that has left him emotionally wounded and socially distant. Barley is something of a screw-up, having coped with the loss by diving into fantasy games and being the relentlessly cheerful “man of the house.” Ian receives, as a 16th birthday present, a wizarding staff and a spell that will allegedly bring dad back to life for exactly 24 hours. But the spell goes awry, with dad only resurrected from the waist-down, so the brothers embark on a fantastical quest to locate items that will allow them to finish the spell.

There are Weekend at Bernie’s jokes to be found, but a guy who appears to be half-invisible doesn’t seem out of place in this environment. Their journey takes them to a once-famed manticore warrior (Octavia Spencer) who now runs a themed restaurant, who in turn sets them on the path of peril sans key context. So she teams up with Laurel Lightfoot (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) to save the kids. The film jogs in place for much of the second act, as the two brothers come to terms with each other’s pain (that’s good) and get constantly sidetracked (that’s bad) as the initial 24 hours winds down. Ian wants to say “Hello” to his father while Barley, who has just a few key memories, merely wants to say “goodbye.”