Thanks for checking out our Toy Story 3 review
Genre: Animated Comedy
Directed by: Lee Unkrich
Staring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty, Don Rickles, Michael Keaton, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Estelle Harris
Released: June 18th, 2010
THE GENERAL IDEA
Andy is now 17 and ready to head off to college, leaving Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and the rest of the toy-box gang to ponder their uncertain futures. When the toys are accidentally donated to the Sunnyside Daycare center they’re initially overjoyed to once again be played with, but their enthusiasm quickly gives way to horror as they discover the true nature of the establishment under the rule of the deceptively welcoming “Lotso” Bear. Now, all of the toys must band together in one final, crazy scheme to escape their confines and return home to Andy.
THE GOOD
As light as a concept of Toys coming to life when you are not looking, this franchise has so much heart. The films all deal with some pretty emotional subject matter that affect kids as they grow. The first film hit the emotional attachment to the toys which we feel as we see their real personalities – but Andy creates his own attachement to toys that are not talking and interacting with him, but is not less real. This remains a theme throughout all three movies and I am happy to say explores just as deep, if not MORE emotionally connecting this time out.
The first half of the movie is good, and I was starting to worry that it would just be more of the same. And Toy Story 1&2 are not bad things to be the same as, but when hoping for more same is almost bad. But in the second half. Holy poop does it deliver.
The characters are all wonderful and the core gang of playthings all return. They are as good as they are supposed to be, which is great. But the new characters work awesome too. Ken really steals the show as the new fun character to love to see. Lotsa Huggin is as contradictorially evil but his motivations are noble if a little skewed. You are sympathetic to his cause even though it works against what our Toy heroes want.
One scene I was worried about was if they were going to beat the “Buzz thinks he is real” angle to death. It was revisited in the sequel, and hinted at when he is reset into Spanish. But that turned out to be the funniest part of the movie for me. When he gets his voice back, I was not the only one in the theater laughing out loud.
The animation style was great as expected. And this time instead of opening the film with Andy playing with the toys, jostling them around in his own imaginary play, we see a “real” interaction of the toys in a real setting, which reveals itself to be in imagination. The quality of course has improved over the last two, but if it didn’t I would have called that a fault!
THE BAD
I would have a hard time trying to find fault in this movie. The only things I would say are even a surface concern is that there are some very impacting scenes that deal with the mortality of toys that might be upsetting for younger audiences, but work to build depth for older children (like me). Also that it took almost half the movie before it really knocked my socks off (which made up for the high standard held in the first half) it was good before it was great, and I would have liked great the whole way through.
OVERALL
Honestly I went into this with VERY high standards, and quite expected it not to live up. Thankfully for me it did. Everything about this movie works for the franchise, for the adventure for the overall story being told. The movie does end “open” for more, but if they never made another film this closes it out nicely with a finality I can rest easy with.
This is added to my “Movies that made me cry” list, and snuggles up almost inappropriately behind my favourite movie of the year thus far (How to Train your Dragon)
I give Toy Story 3 a 9 out of 10
