You’ve got a friend in me: TOY STORY 3 review

You’ve got a friend in me: TOY STORY 3 review

Jun 25

Toy Story 3 is simply another Pixar movie. Which means it’s so undeniably enjoyable that, regardless of flaws, attempting to be critical of it for the pure sake of going against the grain would be nothing more than posturing. Toy Story 3 is one of the best releases of the year– and that’s without delving into technical stuff like the quality of the animation (brilliant) or the seamlessness of the 3D (tolerable).

Unlike a lot of people, I’m not a Pixar enthusiast. Fortunately, thanks to my oldest son (almost three years old), I’m privy to round-the-clock screenings of Pixar’s entire catalogue on my living room television. Toy Story 1 & 2, Monsters Inc. and Cars get the highest rotation, so I’m very familiar with Buzz, Woody and the gang from Andy’s bedroom. I’m also familiar with how brilliant Pixar can be at executing engaging characters and plot. I still see things I hadn’t noticed before when I catch various scenes from Toy Story, proof of a hard working studio that takes time to carefully craft their films to the finest detail.

In our house, Woody has breakfast with my boy every morning; he has his own special chair, propped-up right next to the lad. Buzz spends the majority of the afternoon being flown around the house and crashing into LEGO buildings (or the lad’s younger brother’s head… whichever is closer). Buzz and Woody also meet-and-greet the Cars toys and go on adventures in our backyard, bedrooms and sand-pit, all in the tight grip of my imaginative boy. Those toys mean the world to him. Thanks to 1995′s first ground-breaking Toy Story, this fifteen-year-old sequel in the making now smacks of incredible resemblance to real life.

Following a dramatic, action-packed opening sequence direct from young Andy’s imagination, Toy Story 3 shows Andy playing with Buzz and Woody on old home videotaped movies. It reminded me exactly of how my boy plays with them right now. There’s something comforting, and yet very eeerie about that.

It was always going to be a safe bet for Pixar and Disney: Characters we already know and love, and, in many cases, have grown up with, returning to the screen one last time for a fitting farewell. All of it is tied together nicely by Randy Newman’s timeless song You’ve Got A Friend In Me, and a final shot that cranes to the clouds which resemble Andy’s oginal bedroom wallpaper.

Thankfully, Pixar acknowledged how much time has passed since the first film and kept the timeline relative. Andy is now 17 and heading off to college, so the toys we know and love find themselves at Sunnyside, the local day care centre where they hoped to be played with by kids every day. Needless to say, it isn’t exactly what they had in mind and adventure ensues.

Much of the plot felt a lot like Toy Story 2 because similar tools were used, like misunderstanding Woody’s good intentions and Buzz not realizing he’s actually just a toy. I was looking forward to seeing Buzz as a ‘grown’ toy, one who understood the world he existed in and stood a leader alongside Woody, making decisions for the group and taking charge. Despite showing promise, this is squashed pretty early to allow for more comedic freedom, which is a shame, because the return to the old-school Buzz (“return of the Astro Nut”, remarks Ham) becomes even more repetitive when you spread it over three films.

I must admit that I was hoping to laugh out loud more. Heck, I think the audience I saw it with– a mix of mothers, fathers teenagers and early-twenties couples, wanted to laugh more, too– but we never did. There was a strange ambience across our cinema that kept jokes to a light chuckle, that little vocal acknowledgement you make when something was worth the effort, deserves your recognition for being mildly entertaining, but did not warrant an uncontrollable bursts of laughter. I wanted that burst of laughter, I was waiting for it, and it never came. Thankfully I didn’t have to squirm in my chair and wonder when the film would move along and wrap-up because Pixar have perfected their precision packaging– the film fires out at a perfect 103 minutes. Superb.

The flip-side to the plot and character familiarities is Ken and Barbie’s love-at-first sight relationship. It was a refreshing sprite for a premise that might have gotten stale without them. Wonderfully voiced by Michael Keaton, Ken provided the most entertaining breakout moments of Toy Story 3 with his eccentric personality, his on-again off-again relationship with Barbie and dealing with the difficult task of being a girl’s accessory.

Despite being a film about toys that come to life and avoid being seen by humans, there’s only so far the plot can go– only so far the adventure can lead– before it becomes questionable. I felt like the limit had been reached when the toys found themselves facing a fiery hell-hole demise. Seriously. It’s an entire world away from Andy’s bedroom and the neighbour’s backyard, Al’s Toy Barn or even the Sunnyside Day Care.  By the time the dramatic finish to their now-third epic adventure reached its conclusion, the distance had been maxed out. Both dramatically and geographically, Pixar couldn’t have taken it much further.

I was impressed, however, by the decision to not completely humanize the human characters in the film, despite the technology being available to do so. Keeping Andy and other supporting characters looking the same as they did in the original Toy Story ensured the world audiences are familiar with remained in tact.

While Toy Story 2 came to a celebratory ending that resembled a happy get-together, Toy Story 3 underlines in red and puts a huge full stop on the fact that this is, in all likelihood, the last Toy Story film. The way the arc of this film (and the entire series) comes to a heart-warming close will make even the burliest man choke back a little.

I’m glad the credits ran for a little while so I could compose myself behind my silly fucking 3D glasses and appear like it didn’t affect me at all. But it did. It made me think of my boys and how they’re growing up with the very same Woody and Buzz toys. And how, in what should be the final chapter, this film acknowledges its own toy characters by handing them over and letting them go. One day, our kids– or maybe even you– will have to do the same. And when that day comes, I guarantee you’ll think of the last five minutes of Toy Story 3.

TOY STORY 3