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My thoughts on the score (I skipped the song):
It's probably serviceable to the film, but outside it, it's nothing but a "Heard it before" case, with no interesting hooks or memorable themes, quasi feel goods, cues that just dash about with a happy feel but go nowhere and sometimes end abruptly. Every once in a while something interesting comes along, but it flutters away just as quickly as it arrived and never amounts to anything. And then you're slapped in the face with some annoying rare rock cues.
There are a lot of short cues, which could be easily be forgiven if they were good (the longest one was 3:24, and it was one of the last cues; everything else, typically around forty seconds). David Bell did more in five/ten second cues on "Murder, She Wrote" then two composers did here on any short cue.
If I had to pick any cues that stand out, I'd chose (BEWARE of possible spoilers in track titles):
The Spell (1:06)
Laurel in Pursuit (0:44)
Tavern Remodeling (1:12)
Magnora Gantuam! (which falls apart at the end; could have been a highlight if not for that end) (0:32)
Pixie Dusters (1:18)
Driving Test (but really is just squeaked in) (3:17)
Tracking Guinevere (1:04)
The Trust Bridge (1:20)
Running from the Cops (1:59)
Boom Bastia! (0:47)
Barley's Last Memory of Dad (0:58)
Share My Life with Him (3:24)
Battling the Dragon (3:03)
Track 44 (title is probably a spoiler) (2:52; really from about 1:20 in)
(that's from forty-four cues, not counting the song)
Your opinion may of course vary, but for me, this is a pass.
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A decent film, I thought, but not a Pixar gem. Score not really very noticeable in context.
I did scan some reviews after I read it to see what others thought, and came across possibly the single worst take on a film I have ever seen from a critic, courtesy of Oliver Jones https://observer.com/2020/02/onward-pixar-movie-review-dan-scanlon-tom-holland-chris-pratt/:
"Its story is driven entirely by the desire for Barley and his brother Ian, a shy 16-year-old voiced by Tom Holland, to harness long dormant magic and go on an epic quest—not for fame and glory—but to spend a few scant moments playing catch with their dear departed dad. ... Apparently, it is more appropriate for young men to set about slaying a dragon than it is to spend a few sessions sorting out their feelings of loss with a trained professional."
Seriously? He doesn't understand why two boys might be willing to put themselves in danger and basically do anything at all to spend a few moments with their father, and why they might choose to do that rather than "spend a few sessions sorting out their feelings of loss with a trained professional"? He really thinks Pixar should have made a film about grief counselling?
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