I’m “biast” (con): …pretty sure we don’t need more of ’em
(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)
Well, whaddaya know, Toy Story 4 is the perfect wrap-up to the saga of Woody the cowboy and Buzz Lightyear the spaceman and all the rest of the gang of alive playthings!
Of course, the same was also true of 2010’s Toy Story 3, which seemed to bring their story satisfyingly full circle. And you might even say that 1999’s Toy Story 2 did such a terrific job of upping the ante on the angst of toys that just want to be loved and our relationships as humans with them that, seriously, nothing more needed to be said. Hell, 1995’s Toy Story — the first feature-length computer-animated movie — was so perfect a film that an argument could be made that it was best left alone as a paragon that no one should dare attempt to top.
Who am I kidding? Hollywood doesn’t work that way. But really and truly now, honestly, this is it: Toy Story 4 is the last and final Toy Story movie, Pixar promises. (Unless they make another one.)
And there is — once more — that little niggling sense that we’ve seen much of this before. TS4 is yet again a tale of rescues of lost toys and separations from beloved kids and learning to make new friends and learning to let go when the time is right. There’s a saving grace to this series, though: Its humor and its heart have been so beautifully wise and so stunningly rendered — CGI pun intended — that even with a feeling that returns are diminishing, we’re still left with a warm, smartly entertaining new chapter.
After the events of TS3, Woody (the voice of Tom Hanks: The Post, Inferno) and the rest now belong to little Bonnie (the voice of Madeleine McGraw: Pacific Rim: Uprising, Cars 3), who is just about to go off to kindergarten, and isn’t happy about it. On her first scary day of school, she makes a little plastic person out of a spork, a pipe cleaner, and a couple of googly eyes, and Forky (the voice of Tony Hale: Sadie, Love, Simon) is born. Forky raises many philosophical questions, one quite literally, as when he asks Woody, “Why am I alive?” It’s another riff on the initial relationship between Woody and Buzz (the voice of Tim Allen: Wild Hogs, Christmas with the Kranks) from the very first movie, when Woody had to explain to Buzz how being loved by a child gave them purpose… but Buzz was already alive even before he was loved (as we’ve seen with other toys throughout the series, as with ones still in their boxes in a toy store, not yet owned by anyone). If a child’s love — and Bonnie absolutely adores Forky — can animate an inanimate object, is there anything that cannot be brought to life in such a way? (Oh dear: I may have just stumbled across the plot of Toy Story 5.)
There is room for some profound existential horror in Forky’s animation and subsequent consciousness, though the movie dances around it. Instead, it is Woody’s latest emotional crisis that (once again) takes center stage, as his unexpected re-encounter with former ladylove Bo Peep (the voice of Annie Potts: Ghostbusters) while on a mission to rescue Forky — who of course almost immediately gets lost — for Bonnie’s benefit makes him question his own priorities about loyalty to his kid and to the other toys.
I was on the verge of feeling just a bit let down by the samey sameness of TS4, but some very clever new toy characters with diverse neuroses that are uniquely toyish and simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious got me back fully onboard. Gabby Gabby (the voice of Christina Hendricks: Bad Santa 2, Zoolander 2), a Chatty Cathy–type talking doll, and her gang of ventriloquist dummy enforcers are a hoot. Jordan Peele (Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, Little Fockers) and Keegan-Michael Key (The Predator, The Disaster Artist) are a smart-alecky duo of stuffed toys, Bunny and Ducky, with delusions of… well, you’ll see. And Keanu Reeves (Always Be My Maybe, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum) as the voice of Duke Caboom, “Canada’s greatest stuntman” — a sort of down-market Evel Knievel–esque action toy — completely steals every moment he’s onscreen. I’d say there aren’t enough of those moments, but better that we’re left wanting more of him rather than him outstaying his welcome. (Maybe he’ll be the center of Toy Story 5…)
I was in tears — yet again — by the end. Tears of bittersweet, melancholy joy. I have been moved in this very direction before, by these very characters, and almost by the very same predicaments, and it’s nowhere near as gratifyingly surprising as it once was. But when endless sequels are so often lazy and complacent and coast on presumptions of audience good will, I’m happy to see a sequel that at least doesn’t take my engagement for granted, and works for it.
see also:
• Toy Story 2 (review)
• Toy Story 3 (review)
Oscars Best Animated Feature 2019
previous Best Animated Feature:
2018: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
next Best Animated Feature:
2020: ????
go> the complete list of Oscar-winning Best Animated Features
Oh, Pixar, just as I was thinking I could wait for home video on this one, you have to spring Key and Peele and Canada’s Greatest Stuntman on me. Well done.
I think it’s probably worth seeing on a big screen. Visually, it’s pretty amazing.
Looks like my hetro crush that is Keanu Reeves is nailing everything he’s in at the moment.
Looking forward to seeing this. might bring my kids too
He really is. Amazing to think that he’s hitting a stride *now,* as if he hasn’t been hitting it out of the park all along.
still gotta wonder about the Replacements and Chain Reaction though…
I mean, is he tho?
ETA: don’t get me wrong, I loves me some Keanu. I’ve always pushed back against the “Keanu can’t act” trope. And he really seems to be a lovely person. But his career really kinda has been moments of brilliance interspersed with hot-garbage bad choices. He’s like Nic Cage without the impending tax bills to pay.
He’s always fun to watch even in awful movies, though.
So’s Nic Cage.
That’s an observation, not a disagreement. :-)
Yeah, but he’s in pretty much nothing but awful movies since, oh, *Peggy Sue Got Married.*
So this is the fourth perfect wrap-up to the series? Jeez, it’s like they took all of Return of the King’s endings and made them into their own movies.
Wonderful, Bluejay….
I did feel the deja vu of the LOTR bed celebration scene in the end of TS4.
I hope you stuck around for the extra bits, especially the one that happens when the Pixar logo comes up after the credits.
I saw the midcredits scenes but not the one at the end. Here’s a spoiler-laden rundown of what they all are: https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/6/20/18683586/toy-story-4-end-credits-scenes-spoilers-what-happens-explained
Thought I wasn’t interested, but now I am. And the wife is, too, so we’re going tomorrow night. This better be the last one. haha
The Who will be performing at Madison Square Garden in September.
And Billy Joel will be playing his ten billionth monthly concert at MSG, probably this weekend.
I’m confused…
something to do with them saying its the last concert when it wasn’t?
https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/farewell-tours-that-went-on-forever.html/
Yeah figured that was it.
there is a sadness to the thought that the line “Bonnie made a new friend today” relates to her making Forky, and undersells how she didn’t really make a friend at school her first day. :(
maybe that’s just projection on my part. (starts crying about everything between 1st grade and 11 grade)
The plot is a tad repetitive for my taste, with a few two many, “Oh no! We have to find ____ and get to this location!” moments. Hendricks is hypnotically malevolent as Gabby Gabby – she’s the most interesting character, and I would have liked more focus on her mental journey with a more obvious act of redemption on her part. I used to have a massive crush on Annie Potts in 1986… I still do but I used to too, so I was stoked to see Bo’s evolution from supporting lady to independent swashbuckler.
The most powerful moments in this film are the purely visual moments. The lighting and framing for a couple of the Woody+Bo shots could stand toe to toe with the best from any classic live action film. It’s interesting that the owner/toy bond has morphed over the movies to serve as a metaphor for almost every human relationship.
In the first film, the owner was the parent, the toy a dependent child. In the second, the toys grapple with the idea of leaving their owner parent figures behind and finding joy with each other, and by the third, the owner is a sort of God figure that’s left behind and replaced via reincarnation. Here, the relationship feels almost reversed – it’s the toys who see themselves “raising” their child owners. Rather than reincarnation to a life in service to another God, each new phase is a new relationship, a new love. Some toys decide to remain single after the split, some are unhappily single, some are eager to find another partner. Much like Wreck-it-Ralph 2, this movie is about the stress and trauma of loss and the many ways people cope and move on. It’s a cool message, but like the previous film, the delivery was a little underwhelming.
All that said, I bawled like a baby at Bonnie’s struggles at school and at Gabby Gabby’s longing and heartbreak. As usual, glancing to my left and right through my manly tears, I was dismayed to see the toddlers around me completely unaffected. There’s something about realistically animated children in Pixar movies, I cry every single time. And when winter camo Combat Carl finally got his high-five *sniff* so touching.
Except… we DIDN’T see that evolution. It happened all offstage. Why didn’t anyone at Pixar think *her* story was worth telling? No, instead, the wisdom she acquired on her journey is good only for helping Woody on his.
It’s almost like no one at Pixar can see that a woman’s (or female-coded toy’s) story is worth telling. Hollywood’s blinders are astonishing.
Yeah, it’s super disappointing to see a franchise that’s made such large strides in other areas still be so reluctant to engage fully with its female toy characters, even when their owners are girls. It would have been so cool if we got to see some of Bo’s adventures even in a flashback. Watching her play a supporting role, I couldn’t help but be reminded of one of Beaton’s Strong Female Characters:
SPOILER ALERT
As the review mentions, Forky’s creation and arc introduce a lot of complexity to the Toy Story universe. It’s cool to see the development from the first movie, in which the Mutant Toys represented abused and tortured children who ultimately took revenge on their evil parent creator with threats of their own omniscience, to this one, in which Forky initially deals with depression and suicidal tendencies over not fulfilling a preordained purpose by going through therapy with Woody, finding a new purpose in the responsibility of raising a child, and maintaining social bonds with new friends, ultimately becoming a social worker who councils the toys who are suffering from the same sense of worthless malaise and lost purpose.
This theme of lost purpose is repeated in Woody’s, Duke’s, Ducky+Bunny’s, Buzz’s, and Gabby Gabby’s arcs, and again while I appreciate that each finds their own path to recovery, so many repetitions spread the idea too thin for my tastes. The Bride of Frankenstein moment is cute, but a little disturbing considering the plot of that film. It would have been more interesting if Forky was “female,” and had an unwilling, naive Adam created for her to shake up that ancient order. A female Forky’s initial reluctance and fear of Bonnie would have also resonated with postpartum depression and anxiety.
END SPOILER
The world of Toy Story has become a lot more inclusive, but there are so many new additions in this one that most are forced to remain on the periphery with small parts to play (in McDimples case, literally). If the series continues, as I assume it will since Disney is not known for leaving money on the table (Toy Story: Infinity will take place in a post-apocalyptic hellscape set thousands of years after humans have killed themselves off when millions of plastic toys, doomed to immortality roam the landfills and floating garbage patches fighting brutal wars against Alexa the Great’s Empire and Siri N Drone separatists), I hope some of these newly introduced characters will work their way to the center.
Found on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Saddler_91/status/1140962038635802624
Hmm, so Child’s Play is a pre-remake of Toy Story 5. It does make me wonder at what point, a toy “dies.” Losing limbs or even an entire body doesn’t affect them. Are the plastic-melting flames of hellfire their only weakness? If every piece of Mr. Potato Head is destroyed except a single eye, is he still alive? Does he remember? What if you stick dozens of eyes of different potato heads into the body of another doll, what nightmarish Tateholdery amalgam would result? Human Centipede’s got nothing on the Toy Story Universe.
There is so much horror inherent in *Toy Story.* So much. (crawls back under blankets)
As I recall, even the original didn’t shy away from the horror potential — remember Sid’s broken toys all coming out of the shadows, zombie-style, to freak him out?
Of course I remember. But there’s a lot more horror to explore here.
When there’s no more room in Hell, the toys will walk the earth!!!!
So if we say Woody’s or Buzz’s name three times, will they magically appear like Candyman or Beetlejuice?
Do toys have an afterlife?!
Well, if you believe that toys are alive to begin with, the idea of toys having an afterlife isn’t that big a philosophical stretch.
Of course, if you want to argue whether or not toys have souls, we might be here all day…
Well, I have no doubt that homo sapiens are alive — and cats and cockroaches and so on — but I don’t believe in any sort of afterlife. I’d argue that’s a whole different level of fantasy. Also a toy afterlife is *far* less interesting that this:
Do we consider a human being to be alive if every part of him or her is destroyed except for a single eye?
No, but toys aren’t human beings.
When unwanted toys are discarded, Marie Kondo-style, they come to life and come after you for revenge. Tag line on the poster: “They did not spark joy.”
I dunno, that sameness issue, after TS3, is really holding back my enthusiasm.
For 2/3 of its runtime, Toy Story 3 is ok, at best. None of it is bad, but nothing stands out. After the fun of seeing grown up Andy, it leans heard into old material. Oh, look, someone is lost. Oh look, Buzz thinks he’s a real Space Ranger. Oh look, a toy with abandonment issues. Oh look, a chase in an industrial setting. Little twists (Buzz in Spanish-language mode; Mr. Tortilla Head) keep it amusing but unremarkable.
And then the recycling plant scene happens.
AND THEN, the Andy and Bonnie scene happens.
I remember leaving the theater feeling emotionally wrung out, and deeply emotionally manipulated. And I’ve frankly never revisited that film since. Again, it’s not bad, but I end up wishing they just hadn’t.
I was concerned when Pixar announced back in late 2012 I think it was that 5 of their next 8 films would be sequels. Did that mean the well was about run dry? (The Good Dinosaur certainly didn’t help.) I’ve been pleased with two of those sequels (Incredibles 2: good; Finding Dory: acceptable; Cars 3: best of the franchise, which is a low bar; Monsters U: no reason to exist). I’m glad that they’ve announced no plans for sequels in the near future. Just gotta decide how much I want to put myself through this one.
Pretty much the case here as well. The last half hour or so is what elevated, for me, TS4 from a yellow light/3 stars to a green light/3.5 stars.
Intriguing suggestion. Can you elaborate?
The original comment was marked as spam for some reason. But it IS still an intriguing idea, and probably refers to something like this:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2014/08/13/how-toy-story-illustrates-losing-the-faith/
Yes, and being marked as spam distresses me a bit especially since today is not a day I can really sit down and write it out or even think more about it. But I want to, for sure…For now I’ll just say that I am biast as seeing several of Tom Hanks’ films as constructed from the secular humanist framework: Polar Express, Cloud Atlas, Cast Away,…
When the first movies came out, I was an entrenched religious person. However I loved how much my children loved the movies, even though I saw them as mildly subversive. Eventually I probably liked them more than they did.
I totally will, asap, thrilled that you asked!
I don’t know why Disqus was marking your comments as spam, but I’ve whitelisted you now, so that shouldn’t happen again.
Thank you :)
The first two deal with toys in both good and bad relationships with their gods, people. The neighbor boy, then the toy collector are the bad apples of religions. Becoming sentient and deliberately choosing their path is like a faith crisis when one breaks out of indoctrination. In both cases, the enlightened toys are creating their own moral worlds, like secular humanism, that don’t depend on believing they are real (gods in embryo, instead they are just what they are, toys), much like people not depending on a God relationship for morality. Yet the path out of indoctrination is still fraught with hazards, and the last two films explore the dangers that other toys represent, those who are seem to reject a moral framework as awakened apostates, creating hierarchies of oppression of their own. In the last, the sentient beings are, instead of participating in a binary of good versus evil–just wounded personalities who are opportunistic and trying to survive. The second deep stride I saw in the number four was Woody’s choice to finally come into his own, for his life to no longer exist in relation to the old gods (as most in the modern world are still intimately connect to them, whether we like it or not.) woody gets to choose his own destiny. Forky brings us back to the reality of life as a skeptic in a religious world, one that is rapidly changing and becoming more secularized, by bringing a new, fresh mentality and being born of one as well, with his parting words to perfectly top off the series, “I don’t know.”
Yeah, I’m curious, too.
???