THE STORY – When Bonnie receives a Lilypad tablet as a gift and becomes obsessed, Buzz, Woody, Jessie, and the rest of the gang’s jobs become exponentially harder when they have to go head-to-head with the all-new threat to playtime.
THE CAST – Tim Allen, Tom Hanks, Joan Cusack, Tony Hale, John Ratzenberger, Wallace Shawn, Blake Clark, Annie Potts, Bonnie Hunt, Melissa Villaseñor, Kristen Schaal, Keanu Reeves, Ally Maki, Greta Lee, Conan O’Brien, Craig Robinson, Shelby Rabara, Scarlett Spears, Mykal-Michelle Harris, Matty Matheson, Jeff Bergman, Anna Vocino, John Hopkins, Bad Bunny, Ernie Hudson & Alan Cumming
THE TEAM – Andrew Stanton (Director/Writer) & McKenna Harris (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 102 Minutes
How does Pixar do it? After each previous installment in the “Toy Story“ franchise, it seemed as though the toys were done, that there were no more stories to tell about Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and all the rest. But each time, those wizards found an emotionally resonant, thematically rich story to tell, only deepening the series. “Toy Story 3“ seemed like a perfect ending as the toys faced death and said goodbye to their owner, Andy, who left them with Bonnie, a much younger girl who would let them live out their purpose. But then came “Toy Story 4“ and its perfect ending: Woody leaving the rest of the toys to live his own life as a “lost toy” in the wilds with Bo Peep, finding a purpose that will last far longer than whatever home the toys were placed in next. And now comes “Toy Story 5,” which explores the hot-button topic of parenting in the digital age. An obvious direction for this series to go, perhaps, but one that nonetheless surprises for how nuanced and unexpected the story feels. Against all odds, those wizards at Pixar have done it again: “Toy Story 5” contains all the series’s hallmarks, but foregrounds the human side of the story in a way the series has never done before, resulting in one of their best films in recent memory.
Bonnie (Scarlett Spears), approaching a double-digit age, has realized that other kids don’t play the way she does. Instead of creating imaginative scenarios for the characters represented by their stuffed animals, action figures, etc., her peers are playing games on digital devices while lying on couches. Her parents, concerned by her despair over not making any friends, reluctantly buy her a Lilypad, a tablet designed for kids to play games and connect with their friends. Lily (Greta Lee) has a very different idea of what’s best for Bonnie than the other toys, leading to a battle that Lily wins by weaponizing psychology; since the other kids don’t play with toys anymore, they make fun of Bonnie for doing so, causing her to abandon her toys in favor of Lily. Unwilling to be abandoned by another owner, cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack) takes it upon herself to save Bonnie from the brainrot of the Lilypad and find her a real friend who shares her imagination and love of play. Will this finally mean the end of the toys’ story?
If the answer to that question isn’t obvious to you, then perhaps you haven’t seen a “Toy Story“ movie before. That’s just about the only thing here that’s predictable, though, as the film’s focus is much more on Bonnie than on the toys, with the characters engaging in a genuine debate about what is best for our children in the digital age. Everything about Bonnie’s characterization shows that the Pixar creatives are genuinely concerned about what technology is doing to kids these days; the immediate zoning out when she first turns on the Lilypad is instantly recognizable, but the crippling anxiety that accompanies even the slightest misstep is heartrending. The panic attack she has over missing her friends’ morning game-and-chat session feels painfully real. Still, the way she clutches the Lilypad like a security blanket when anything goes wrong is a perfect encapsulation of the way technology has completely altered our brain chemistry. Most tellingly, Lily is presented as having Bonnie’s best interest at heart but going about it the wrong way, completely unaware of what “friendship” and “play” actually mean in the real world. Screenwriters Andrew Stanton and McKenna Harris don’t portray devices as inherently evil; they’re just inappropriate for kids (though if adults in the audience leave the theater wanting to shut off their devices and downgrade to a “dumb phone,” so much the better). The film’s insistence on real-world connection feels vital, especially for the kids in the audience who don’t know any better, and the distinction between playing a game and actually playing is as vital for the adults in the audience to hear as it is for their children.
If this all sounds somewhat didactic and overly intellectual, rest assured that the film itself is anything but. Stanton knows all of these characters inside out, and the new ones introduced for this film are just as memorable as the new additions from each previous “Toy Story“ film have been. The cast of characters is so overstuffed at this point that anyone who isn’t Woody, Jessie, or Buzz gets only a few lines of dialogue, but they’re usually funny, character-based jokes guaranteed to make you giggle. The new characters get more screentime, and their distinctive personalities feel like vintage Pixar. In addition to Lilypad, there’s a group of older tech-based toys that a young girl named Blaze has grown out of and stuffed in a junk drawer: Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien), a handheld toilet-training game with a toilet paper roll motif, Snappy (Shelby Rabara), a point-and-shoot digital camera, and Atlas (Craig Robinson), a mini GPS that looks like a flip phone. While they all end up being able to connect with each other wirelessly in ways that don’t quite track with real life, every tiny detail of their screen presence – the design, voice work, jokes, and physical comedy – rings hilariously true. The filmmakers have captured all the glitches that have marked the past few generations of devices in all their user-frustrating glory, and in the most hilarious way possible (watch out for what happens when Buzz and Woody discover Lily’s AI Assistant voice commands).
Speaking of Buzz Lightyear, the erstwhile space ranger continues to be the series’ (not-so-)secret weapon. The Pixar team clearly loves coming up with wild new things for him to do, and they’ve come up with a brilliant running gag for this film: A shipping container of “HI-TECH EDITION” Buzz Lightyear dolls has washed up on a deserted island. Naturally, they don’t know they’re toys and think they have washed up on some alien planet. We keep returning to them throughout the film, and each time is funnier than the last, culminating in a perfectly hilarious reveal that connects to the film’s themes in surprising ways. Everything involving Buzz Lightyear in “Toy Story 5” displays Pixar at the absolute peak of their powers, taking clever ideas and bringing them to wildly entertaining, stunningly animated life.
If “Toy Story 5” doesn’t quite represent peak Pixar, it does find the studio willing to tinker with its established formula in little ways that make a big difference. In the previous films, the toys’ owners were mostly afterthoughts, with the toys as the main characters. But this film’s focus on Bonnie, truly centering her needs even more than “Inside Out“ and its sequel, brings a deeper emotional resonance and makes it up-to-the-minute relatable in a way none of the studio’s previous films have been. The “Toy Story“ films have gotten a lot of mileage out of having adults see themselves in toys, but in having them see themselves in the children who play with them, “Toy Story 5” stands out from the rest. It may not be their best, but maintaining this level of quality five films deep into a franchise is impressive. Go ahead, Pixar. Make as many of these as you want. They bring out the best in you. Hopefully, they continue to bring out the best in audiences, too.
