Toy Story 4: Shopworn

Toy Story 4 (2019) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated G, despite some scary sequences
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.21.19

The familiar faces are as welcome as longtime friends; the new characters are both adorable and — in some cases — shiveringly disturbing; the dialog remains witty and funny; the incidental encounters are amusing, clever and well-paced; the voice talent is as sharp as ever.

Bo Peep, aware of the dangers awaiting those who unwisely venture into the antique
store's main aisles, carefully leads her friends — Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Bunny, Ducky
and (on her shoulder) Giggle McDimples — behind dusty cabinets, as they try to rescue
a captured comrade.

But the driving plotline for Toy Story 4 — arguably, the reason for the film’s existence — isn’t nearly as satisfying as those of its predecessors. It feels contrived, rather than organic. The whole remains less than the sum of its well-crafted parts.

One can’t help feeling that this is a case of Slinky Dog’s tail wagging the rest of its body: a film dictated more by crass commerce than artistic justification.

2010’s Toy Story 3 gave the franchise a warm sense of closure, with now-grown Andy passing his beloved plaything companions to preschool-age Bonnie. As we’ve constantly been reminded, a toy’s noblest endeavor is to bring comfort and enchantment to an imaginative child: a mission that cannot be accomplished if tucked into a box that gets stored in an attic, like Puff the Magic Dragon sadly slipping into his cave.

Toy Story 4 similarly concludes with a different sort of torch-passing, which — depending on one’s emotional involvement with these characters — will prompt tears, bewilderment, snorts of displeasure, or a feeling of outright betrayal.

Full disclosure: I don’t approve of what scripters Andrew Stanton and Stephany Folsom — working from a story by eight (!) credited writers, including John Lasseter and Rashida Jones — have wrought.

But that comes much later.

The film begins with a prologue dating back to Andy’s era, which explains why Bo Peep (voiced by Annie Potts) was MIA in Toy Story 3. She, her three sheep — Billy, Goat and Gruff — and matching lamp were tumbled into a box with other items to be donated elsewhere, much to the dismay of Woody (Tom Hanks). Turns out he’s long nurtured a crush for Bo Peep, likely to the surprise of those who figured he and feisty Jessie (Joan Cusack) were an unspoken item.

Back in the present day, Woody is enduring insult on top of injury, since little Bonnie prefers to pin his sheriff’s badge on Jessie. Woody, in turn, has been relegated to the back reaches of a closet laden with other neglected toys: among them Melephant Brooks (Mel Brooks), Carl Reineroceros (Carl Reiner) and Chairol Burnett (Carol Burnett).

That’s a cute bit of stunt casting, but their appearances are so brief, you’ll scarcely notice.

Then, a fresh crisis: Bonnie is dragged off to kindergarten orientation, much to her terror. Woody, sensing an opportunity to prove his usefulness, clandestinely hitches a ride in her backpack. He’s subsequently instrumental in her adjustment to a classroom filled with self-absorbed children, and boy, that’s a quietly brutal sequence.

The result is that Bonnie is much more cheerful upon returning home, mostly because she has made herself a new friend from a white spork, a red pipe cleaner, a tongue depressor and a pair of mismatched eyes. She names him Forky.

Ah, but because she has — in essence — created a toy, Forky (Tony Hale) comes to life once he and Woody rejoin Buzz (Tim Allen), Jessie, Rex (Wallace Shawn), Hamm (John Ratzenberger) and all the other stalwarts in Bonnie’s bedroom. But it’s a confused sort of sentience; Forky doesn’t realize that he is a toy, despite the ferociousness with which he’s cuddled, every waking moment, by Bonnie.

As a character, Forky is … difficult to grasp. It’s a cute idea, and one that accurately reflects the manner in which imaginative children “make” their friends. And yes, Bonnie’s dependence on Forky drives much of what later comes to pass. But despite the sweetness of Woody’s determination to model appropriate toy behavior, Forky never ceases to be more than a half-baked joke character who generates chuckles just as much from his slapdash appearance, as Hale’s snarky line delivery.

Kindergarten ceases to be an immediate threat when Bonnie’s parents announce a family vacation; she naturally brings all of her toys. Several stops up the road, they land in a charming small town that boasts a colorful carnival laden with crowds and exhilarating thrill rides; the main street also features a musty antique store chockablock with cobwebs and all manner of long-neglected bric-a-brac.

During after hours, the latter empire is ruled by Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks), a late 1950s-era talking doll never loved, because of a manufacturing defect in her pull-string voice box. She’s assisted by a quartet of silent ventriloquist’s dummies, who patrol the store with a looming, shambling quietness that’s inherently unsettling.

Actually, that’s not strong enough. Although I remain mindful of the malevolent Sid’s maligned toys in 1995’s Toy Story, and the cymbal-smashing monkey in Toy Story 3, these dummies are flat-out creepy. Director Josh Cooley always frames them for maximum malevolence, evoking the chill factor of sinister dolls that’ve haunted us ever since one of Rod Serling’s original Twilight Zone episodes.

(Film fans of a certain age also will remember Hugo, the evil dummy controlled by the insane Michael Redgrave, in 1945’s anthology film Dead of Night.)

A rescue mission prompted by Forky’s gullibility becomes increasingly problematic, thanks in great part to these four dummies; they sit atop the four compass points of the store’s tallest glass cabinet, their heads slowly swiveling 360 watchful degrees, like nasty security cameras. We’re talking full-tilt ooky-spooky. Brrrrrrrrrr!

The third act has a few surprises that cleverly work against expectation; there’s also a nice bit that gives one of these characters some long-awaited closure. (That’s far more satisfying than what comes immediately thereafter.)

Allen has a cute running gag, as Buzz — misunderstanding Woody’s description of soul — frequently relies on his “inner voice” to determine what to do next.

The increasingly chaotic adventure introduces numerous new characters: Duke Caboom (Keanu Reeves), a daredevil stunt-cycle toy who couldn’t live up to the exaggerated promise of his TV commercials; Giggle McDimples (Ally Maki), a miniature 1980s doll who heads search-and-rescue Pet Patrol missions for Mini-opolis; and Ducky and Bunny (Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele), carnival prize plushes literally attached at the hip, soured by having been fastened to a wall, and forced to watch countless children spend money on a game that’s unwinnable by design.

Key and Peele are hilarious, and their outrageously fluorescent characters perfectly epitomize the cheap, gaudy sort of plush creatures found in carnivals. (“The saddest, most disposable toys known to man,” observes Stanton.)

As always, this attention to animation detail is a Pixar hallmark. The look of each character unerringly reflects its vintage, from Gabby Gabby’s “weighted” eyes, which close when she’s horizontal; to the porcelain-like sheen of Bo Peep and her sheep. 

The larger tableaus are even more impressive. The carnival rides and midway, the town’s bucolic main street, and the vehicles that traffic along … everything looks photo-realistic to an astonishing degree. At one point, when Woody reaches the highest point in the antique store, he’s briefly transfixed — as are we — by the dozens of sparkling, vintage lamps that hang from the ceiling. It’s a breathtaking tableau.

Randy Newman once again delivers a vibrant orchestral underscore that enhances excitement, and makes the quieter, poignant moments even more tender. His iconic series theme — “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” — makes a pleasant return, and he supplies two new songs: “I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away,” referencing Woody’s long-suffering effort to save Forky from his worst instincts; and “The Ballad of the Lonesome Cowboy,” which hastens the end credits along.

To be sure, there’s much to admire in Toy Story 4, and I’ve no doubt it’ll be a popular family event. But it simply doesn’t have the spark that elevated its predecessors to the sweet spot occupied by truly superior animated epics.