Toy Story 3 Review (My first overwhelmingly positive critique)

So this is how my childhood ends, eh?

Real men are able to admit when a movie reduces them to a wet sobbing mass of crying man-baby goop. This occurrence is rare, but it happens, and Toy Story 3 is one of those gems that pulls at the heart strings with a meat hook and doesn’t stop until you’ve been completely gored and hollowed. But why did Toy Story 3 have this affect? Well the answer lies somewhere with time.

Looking at the lower right hand corner of my computer screen I happened to notice that we live in the year 2010, and sadly we still don’t have flying cars. Now call me a loon and throw me in a padded white room, but I recall the original Toy Story was released in 1995. Talk about meditative planning. 15 years speaks words about the amount of care put into a trilogy when most movies are able to forcefully squeeze out a new chapter every summer in this post Lord of the Rings capitalist money vacuum.

When the first Toy Story was released, I was still in elementary school, and it marked a special occasion as being the first movie I saw with a friend without any adult supervision. My good childhood chum, Peter Kelly and I went to go see this new marvel of computer technology and I was captivated. This was a strong sign of things to come. Never had the world seen animation like this and the story was good to boot! The characters were rich, their challenges were emotional, it was everything an intelligent film for both adults and children could be. The sequel followed a few years later, but by then I was getting ready to enter High School and things like Toy Story didn’t interest me, I was at that ignorant age where I had other interests like naked anime women; besides, it was a sequel and how well do those things usually turn out? Well about a year later when I finally caught it on DVD I was once again amazed at how spectacular the Pixar creative wizardry was. Sure, the theme of the movie wasn’t as deep as the original, but the writing and jokes were superior. Upon reflection it’s interesting to see that the premise of that particular movie was about a collective hyper nerd, as if lampooning the nerd pop culture that was blossoming and would soon govern our society for the next decade. Very clairvoyant of you Pixar. Finally, 11 years later we have the final chapter and talk about perfect timing.

So as with most Pixar movies we begin our epic tale with an animated short, this time around we are treated to a smart piece called Night and Day. This one is a bit difficult to describe, but it’s brilliant, maybe not as good as Presto, but then again what is? Similar to the theme of Presto, Night and Day is a major throwback to the classic Chuck Jones era of 2D animation, and while Presto emulated this formula in timing, rhythm, and pacing, Night and Day does it in a much more literal sense. The only downside to this short and the one thing that keeps it from becoming my favorite occurs somewhere towards the end. The message of the story quite literally breaks the fourth wall and rudely interrupts the delicate balance of what’s being said with the physical language. A minor nitpick, but afterwards I looked over my shoulder half expecting to see someone with a mallet hitting me on the head. Regardless, it’s still one of their finer entries and once again proves that this is a company that is only growing more relevant and powerful with time.

So yeah, let’s talk about the actual movie, shall we?

Toy Story 3 begins by summing up the very nature of a young boy’s imagination really well. The first 5 minutes are so in tune with how my friends and I used to play it’s uncanny. In actuality, the first scene is used to reestablish all the central characters, as any decent sequel should. It gives us a soft transitional period to familiarize ourselves with these loveable characters once more and reminds us why we loved them in the first place.

Soon afterwards reality sets in and the audience sees what’s been happening in the past decade. The cheerful little boy Andy, who owns all of the Toys, is now a teenager going off to college. With the heavy weight of adult hood looming over his shoulders it is quickly explained to us that he hasn’t played with any of his toys in years and it looks like their fate is destined for the attic. Still, the ever loyal Boy Scout (or maybe I should say Urban Ranger since it’s a Pixar film) Woody tries to convince the others that they have nothing to fear and that Andy still loves and cherishes them just as much as he did when he was a child.

Skipping ahead a few beats, Andy, while cleaning out his room in preparation for the big move out, decides to save his toys and retire them in the attic while storing Woody in a box destined for college. Thanks to a bit of plot convenience and Andy’s mother mistaking a large black trash bag for, well, trash disposes of the toys on the sidewalk to be thrown away. Feeling completely neglected the toys donate themselves to Sunnyside daycare, a place where toys can gracefully “settle down”. Upon arriving, the toys are introduced to Lotso, a cuddly teddy who smells like strawberries and leads the toys of Sunnyside. In his utopian society all seems well, but obviously there has to be tension in order to have a movie, so not all is what it seems. Within a day the toys find themselves enslaved in a strange militaristic POW setting and must escape from a grueling nightmare of toddler torture while they’re still in one piece, so to speak.

This time around, the story deals with much darker themes than the series is used to, most likely to stick with the beat of the original audience of Toy Story circa 1995. The whole thing turns into a prison escape movie that we’ve all seen a dozen times before. However, while the plot may not be a terribly original story idea, it’s not necessarily a bad one either. If Pixar has proven one thing time and time again, it’s that they are a company that is very genre savvy. Pixar tends to be self aware of their restrictions and the limitations of the stories that they write within. Let’s face it, all of their previous titles were also derivative, even the awesomeness of The Incredibles is nothing more than a perfect homage to the works of superhero pulp fiction. Literary fiction, often times considered the best kind of fiction, develops not from a strong story idea, but from the characters and their individual dilemmas. The audience gets the most satisfaction from seeing characters that they can relate to, characters that they want to see succeed and overcome the obstacle put before them. We end up caring for the characters that are the most layered and have the most semblance of humanity, and once again Pixar delivers the goods.

Speaking of the characters, if you’ve already seen a Toy Story film then you know the roster by now, and if you haven’t seen a Toy Story film yet then I suspect you may not actually be a Human or an American for that matter – communist bastards…. So leading the cast we have Tom Hanks as Woody and Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear. For me these two actors deserve a great deal of credit and probably should pursue more work as voice actors. I doubt they have a great deal of funny voices at their beck and call, but their stand alone vocals carry a lot of range and emotion. Hanks, has always managed to emote the feeling of a strong willed leader who is unquestionably devoted to his owner. Woody is the character the audience empathizes with the most and the tradition carries here as well. Tim Allen is boisterous, loud, and exudes confidence; furthermore his character often goes through the most jarring of character personality arcs which Allen is always more than happy to accommodate.

Rounding off the cast of the returners we have: Joan Cusack who returns to fill the shoes of the always perky and exuberant Jessie from Toy Story 2. Don Rickles, a man whose short fuse and miffed persona ooze from every word he speaks as Mr. Potato Head. Wallace Shawn, who’s inconceivably talented voice work, is lent to the ever pessimistic and troubled Rex. Estell Harris, a woman so stereotypically Jewish that her nagging voice perfectly complements the diametrically opposed Don Rickles. And of course, john Ratzenberger comes back as Hamm, because let’s face it; John Ratzenberger is to Pixar as Dom Deluise is to Don Bluth.

Let’s not forget about the newbies either. To begin I must stress the new voice of Slinky dog, Blake Clark, who does an outstanding job filling the enormous shoes left behind by the late Jim Varney. Other than Blake the two key characters introduced are Lotso, voiced by Ned Beatty (don’t worry, there are no banjoes within miles of this film) and Michael Keaton as the Ken doll. These two were phenomenal in their respective roles. Mr. Beatty does a terrific job as both a kind hearted, deeply troubled, and menacing villain. One of the biggest problems with the first two Toy Story films was that neither of them had very interesting or well constructed enemies. Both the bully from the first film and the prospector from the second were in many ways flat and unsympathetic. Lotso on the other hand has as many layers as a parfait, and Ned Beatty’s voice definitely helps to get across all the multi faceted layers that lie within each fold of his cotton stuffing. Michael Keaton on the other hand is simply played for laughs, but it works wonders. Keaton always works best when he is doing comedies, hell Beetlejuice alone is evidence of that and I always wondered where he had disappeared to over the past few years. Despite low profile, it’s good to have him back, and it’s nice to see him playing up a foppish and dapper pansy boy who desperately wants to be seen as a tough guy.

On a technical level the movie also impressed me. Sure I saw it in 3d but unlike that atrocity Alice in Wonderland, this movie didn’t induce ocular bleeding whenever red was present on the screen. The real treat with this picture is how contemporary and modern the graphics look despite the characters not appearing to have changed at all in the past 15 years. Whatever the animators did, it worked. The illusion of the classic design mingling with modern special effects truly shines.

The barebones artistic craft of film making was also impressive. All the editing, cinematography, and visual imagery really compliments the feeling of each scene. Even the somber moments of the film when it takes a decidedly dark tone paints a picture for the audience with every leaf, background object, and subtle lighting effect on display. Although to be honest this shouldn’t come as any surprise from Pixar. Even their worst movies like Cars were outstanding in this regard. Let’s face it: birds fly, nerds wank, Tiger Woods makes forced apologies, and Pixar knows their cinema.

After 15 long years and having grown up with these characters, this final movie leaves me both sad and infinitely happy at the same time. I can’t help but feel that this final movie is going to resonate with my generation more than any other. These are characters we were first introduced to when we were about Andy’s age in the original and now the series comes to a close with a fond farewell to both childhood and friends while embracing the future with a modest warmth and optimistic sense of excitement. The final moments of this movie had me reflecting upon my own childhood and took me back to the moments when I first had to leave for college and the time I left my parents’ home to strike it on my own. When viewing this movie I attended a 9:25pm showing on a Tuesday night and the theater was occupied by no children or middle aged adults. Everyone was around my age and I felt a sort of kinship, a kind of synergy with them as if there was an unspoken message being sent to one another that this was in fact a love letter to all the innocent wide eyed children who remember seeing the first film in theaters. For a movie trilogy that is not actually telling a single over arching narrative, I get this sense that the three movies work together very well to tell a complete story about these simple inanimate objects and what they mean to the people who love them. This in many ways is a perfect trilogy and while it saddens me to see it gone, I’m glad they gave me a conclusion. There are so many companies out there who desperately seek to make sequels just for the money, but this is a movie that needed to be made for the fans. Thanks for the good times; I’ll always have the memories.

By the way Pixar, nice touch with Tottoro.