The Toy Story franchise has been a marvel since the first film’s 1995 debut.
This fifth entry is the best thus far: a bold statement, considering the quality, imagination, voice talent, carefully sculpted characters, sentimentality and heart that long have been this series’ hallmark.
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| When an angry Jessie insists that newcomer Lilypad is useless with respect to helping Bonnie make new friends, the quick-thinking tablet briskly signs up the little girl with three schoolmates ... in a chat room. |
Andrew Stanton and McKenna Harris, sharing writing and directing chores, have challenged these beloved characters with an existential threat: impending irrelevance, due to the competitive, soul-sucking arrival of (gasp, shudder) screens.
Woody, Buzz, Jessie and all the other toys have long cherished their crucial role in helping young owners nurture their imaginations, while also shaping their social skills. When one owner successfully “grows up,” the toys are passed along to another, as when college-bound Andy lovingly introduced his toy friends to young Bonnie, at the end of Toy Story 3.
But the increasingly ubiquitous tablets threaten to break that chain, which our heroes aren’t about to tolerate. They’ve no desire to mimic Puff the Magic Dragon, who “sadly slipped into his cave.”
Although this story gives everybody plenty of screen time, Jessie is the focus. Cusack deftly conveys this character’s huge emotional arc.
That said, this film opens on a disorienting and unexpected note. Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen) wakens in a strange place, during a dark and stormy night. Waves crash on a debris-strewn beach. He spots a huge, damaged container several yards away, apparently having fallen off a passing ship.
Peering inside, he spots 49 more Buzz Lightyears. He activates them; they assemble en masse to scout the island. Sharp-eyed viewers might notice a fleeting glimpse of their spacesuit decals: “Hi-Tech Edition.”
(Hold that thought.)
Uncertain of their location, unsure of what to do, they equate a blazing star in the nighttime sky with their venerable “Star Command” ... and, hastily assembling a raft, set off to reach it.
Meanwhile...
Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) happily plays with her toys, putting them through adventures that (for the first time) we “see” through her imaginative eyes. The visual style of these playtime sequences are wholly different: a pastel, tactile, chalk-drawing technique that evokes animated child’s drawings. The impact is sweet, vibrant and mirthfully silly.
This gaggle of toys, led by Jessie and Buzz, includes her faithful horse Bullseye, Rex (Wallace Shawn), Mr. Potato Head (Jeff Bergman), Slinky Dog (Blake Clark), Forky (Tony Hale) and many other familiar faces.
Woody (Tom Hanks), Bo Peep (Annie Potts) and Combat Carl (Ernie Hudson) are elsewhere at the moment.
When not playing with her inanimate companions, Bonnie is deeply unhappy; she has no real friends. Her well-meaning parents (Jay Hernandez and Lori Alan) arrange a playdate with school mates Heidi, Chelsea and Kara. Delighted, Bonnie brings along her favorite toys ... and is crestfallen when the three girls, each carrying a tablet, react with dismay and blurt out the worst possible greeting:
“Do you still play with toys?”
Shattered, Bonnie flees. Realizing they’ve made a tactical error, Mom and Dad reluctantly get her a Lilypad. Their initial attempt to limit screen time fails utterly, as a rapt Bonnie cannot bear to part with this new companion; it even talks to her. (Greta Lee supplies the chirpy, snarky voice.)
During a rare moment when Bonnie leaves the room, Jessie challenges this interloper, arguing that Lilypad isn’t doing anything to facilitate real-world friendship. Far from the truth, the tablet condescendingly retorts, while sending friend requests to Heidi, Chelsea and Kara, so they can group-chat in “The Pond.”
Jessie is horrified. No matter what she says or does, Lilypad is smarter, faster and multiple steps ahead of any efforts made by the traditional toys. Jessie summons Woody, and even he’s initially flummoxed. Worse yet, he and the gang come across many other toys who’ve been cruelly discarded.
Nothing is more chilling than a subsequent tableau that shows the four little girls in one room, staring at their respective screens, with no personal interaction. Worse yet, the camera pulls back to reveal an entire neighborhood of evening bedroom windows illuminated by the soft glow of screens.
This is just the tip of this film’s complex narrative iceberg. When Bonnie rashly allows her toys to be bundled into a box in the garage, Jessie and Bullseye get separated from the others. Woody’s “age” is conveyed via a paunch and droll bald spot at the back of his head.
Buzz has been trying to work up the courage to propose to Jessie, a desire that gets sidelined when she disappears; in her absence, Buzz and Woody spar over who should “lead the team” in their ongoing effort to thwart Lilypad.
By happy coincidence, those 50 wayward Buzz Lightyears, having made it to civilization, naturally wind up in the same general vicinity.
Jessie and Bullseye have landed at the ranch home of 9-year-old Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), a tech-savvy free spirit who loves her horse (Daffodil), the family’s pot-bellied pig (Jimmy Dean), and a good dance party. Tellingly, her bedroom features shelves filled with toy horses.
In a sly nod to the notion that obsolescence isn’t limited to our traditional toys, Jessie reluctantly joins forces with three first-gen tech toys discovered in Blaze’s junk drawer: the potty-mouthed Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien), a toilet-training aide; Snappy (Shelby Rabara), a peppy little toy camera; and Atlas (Craig Robinson), a GPS-laden toy hippo.
It’s impossible to do justice to the clever way Stanton and Harris blend all of these elements, while simultaneously adding visual gags and snarky one-liners that come fast, furious and funny. (Laugh too long, and you’ll miss the next one. Or two. Or three). My favorite: the need for the toys to quickly become inert whenever people are present, a sight gag milked to marvelous extreme during the story’s frantic climax.
Randy Newman’s sparkling orchestral score alternates between vibrant and richly sentimental, as a given scene demands; he leans heavily on instrumental nods to “When She Loved Me,” from his score for Toy Story 2. His score here shares time with “I Knew It, I Knew You,” a sweetly gentle new song performed by Taylor Swift.
I lack the superlatives to quantify how this film succeeds so brilliantly, but it boils down to this: Everything works.
And do hang around during the first wave of end credits; you’ll be rewarded with a marvelous little epilogue.
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