Toy Story 3
Dir: Lee Unkrich
Starring: (voices of) Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty, Michael Keaton, Jodi Benson
If you go by such animated franchises as Ice Age or Shrek then to hope to get a decent third entry in a series is to expect a minor miracle. In fact, the law of diminishing returns usually sets in with the second movie (Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is a particularly good example of a truly terrible sequel). So in a way the geniuses at Pixar Studios, the people behind such animated classics as Wall-E and Up, had already beaten the odds with Toy Story 2 which was in every way as good as the first movie. Could they recreate the magic with a third film? It looked difficult, especially considering that the last one appeared more than a decade ago.
All the old favourites toys – including the cowboy Woody (Tom Hanks) and the astronaut Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) – are back and there are some new additions but for a while as the latest Toy Story unfolds one thinks the dreaded disease sequel-itis has struck again. It’s not as if the movie isn’t good in its first half – it is and the laughs, especially the ones surrounding Barbie (Jodi Benson) and a metro-sexual Ken (Michael Keaton) and a Buzz switched into Spanish-language, Latin lover mode, are expertly induced – but there’s nothing in it which would suggest that a third film really needed to be made. But in its second half not only does the movie take off it soars as Woody, Buzz and co. try to break out of a children’s day care centre to which they have been consigned through a convoluted set of events. As Toy Story 3 becomes a prison break movie the animation also kicks into high gear with some inventive visual compositions and play with light and textures and some very exciting action sequences (which could actually be a little scary for the very little ones). And by the time the movie nears its climax it also becomes a quiet meditation on the passage of time, nostalgia, the impermanence of our existences (pretty heavy stuff for a children’s film) and the power of love.
The quite moving finale is in fact the most fitting of send-offs for these beloved characters and, as such, I really hope that the rumours of a 4th instalment in the series turn out to be completely unfounded.
Cut to chase: Takes a while to take off but then it soars
