At the Movies: Toy Story 3

Overall Rating: 9.9

In the first (and therefore most creative) Toy Story, the animators at Pixar asked simply...what if our childhood things were alive...what if, when we weren't there to notice, they came to life and fought for our affections? The theme then was the replacement of simpler (younger) toys with modern flashy ones (and finding room in one's heart for both). In the second installment, they deal with the inhumanity of collection for the sake of greed, rather than love. And now, finally, they deal with a moment in life that we can all relate to...the end of childhood and the passing of that part of ourselves that is truly innocent enough to play with the same wonder and unbridled joy we once carried.

I'm going to break format a bit here and give my own review as a critical counter to this review by cynical Armond White of the New York Press and NPR fame. White has a long history of annoyingly pseudo-intellectual and arrogant condemnations of Hollywood's most popular works and this one has to be considered one of his least insightful reviews to date. We open our own review with a stern wag of the finger to this stuffy, self-congratulatory little man. We can tell he's very intelligent from some of his other reviews, but don't believe he honestly gave this movie a chance...or even watched it with an appropriately critical eye.

Plot Synopsis:

Woody and the gang are still with their best buddy (Andy), but he hasn't touched his toy chest in years. They try desperately to get his attention, but he's got other things on his mind. He's heading off to college in a week and his room is being cleared...the toys all fear the worst - they may soon be headed to the dump or stuffed away in the attic where they'll fall into disuse and disrepair. Andy must choose what to do with his old things (he even calls them junk in a moment of frustration!), and he decides to put them in storage with the exception of his long-time friend Woody, which will come with him to college as a sort of security blanket. Unfortunately, in a moment of miscommunication, the toys wind up on the street corner and are about to be thrown away when they engineer their own escape and try to get back into the house, winding up in a box of toys donated by Andy's sister. That box (which includes a Barbie doll amongst other more female toys to add to the cast) winds up at Sunnyside Day Care.

At first, most of Andy's toys believe this to be a miracle. They meet the facility's head toy - a bear named Lotso Hugs who seems friendly and helpful at first glance - and are made to realize that they'll be played with for as long as they stay in one piece. As children grow up, they are simply replaced, unlike their near-demise at the hands of the aging Andy. Woody, however, is unwilling to accept this loveless (albeit never-ending) arrangement. He wants to go back to his one owner, but none of the rest believe him when he claims that Andy meant for them to go into the attic. He engineers a daring escape, but is inadvertently claimed by a sweet little girl named Bonnie before he can return home.

Meanwhile, the toys discover that they've been placed in the toddler's room at day care. Toddlers are too young to play with these kinds of toys correctly - they run screaming inside and beat the hell out of every toy in the room in their exuberance. When Buzz decides to speak with Lotso and try to get reassigned to a more age-appropriate room, he is met by a gang of jading veterans of the facility who, when they sense that Buzz will not cooperate with their bully-master's tyrannical rules, return him to his factory demo mode and use him to imprison his friends in the Butterfly room.

Woody's fate is much kinder - Bonnie is very good to her toys and he has a fun time being played with amongst Bonnie's friendly possessions, but he still belongs to Andy and yearns to go home. Believing the rest of Andy's toys are happy where they are, he looks up Andy's address online, but when he mentions Sunnyside to the others, they warn him that Sunnyside is a place of despair run by a despot. One of Bonnie's toys tells the story of Lotso's fall from beloved childhood possession to lost toy (who discovers he's been replaced by his owner) to bitter, world-weary dictator. Hearing that his friends are in trouble, Andy sneaks back into Sunnyside and helps his friends engineer what has to be one of the most intricate and fascinating escapes I've ever seen in film. They break their bonds, tackle Sunnyside's guard-toys, try to reach the dumpster and escape to the street below...but are stopped at the last minute by Lotso and his chief thug Big Baby (amongst others).

Woody tries to bargain for their freedom, but Lotso's rage can't be stopped...that is...until Woody tells Big Baby and the rest of Lotso's thugs about Lotso's past and Big Baby turns on Lotso and throws him into the dumpster. The rest of the toys, along with Lotso, wind up in the dumpster and on their way to the dump! Once there, they are swept up by the dump's trash masher and incinerator and nearly destroyed (until the little green men from the Pizza Planet commandeer "The Claw!" and rescue the group.

Lotso gets what he deserves...a life as a hood ornament on an 18-wheeler! The rest of Andy's toys make their way back to Andy's just in time for his departure and Woody, in a final act of kindness, rescues them all from a life in the attic by writing a note suggesting that Andy donate his toys to Bonnie. When he takes them to her, he has a sweet little story about all of them in the fond hope that she will treat them as well as he did. He intends to keep Woody, but when he sees how much Bonnie loves him, he tells her to take really good care of his best friend. Meanwhile, the toys at Sunnyside (including Andy's army men, who deserted at the beginning of the movie) report that life is much better now that Lotso's gang has been broken and we see them tag-teaming the toddlers' playroom.

Writing: 10.0

I have to wonder just what on Earth movie Mr. White was watching when his chief criticism (that the film was "so besotted with brand names and product placements that the message about childhood innocence is lost") makes no sense? Yes, there were toys with a recognizable brand name attached to them. It's a movie about toys...there are going to be toys that modern Americans will recognize (in fact, one of the things that makes the writing so enjoyable in this movie is the game every audience member can play - "Oh, I had that toy!")...but of the main characters (not the bit parts that surround Andy's family of toys like Ken and Barbie - inserted into this story to light-heartedly MAKE FUN OF that franchise, Arnold...not to celebrate it)...there are but TWO with a brand name. Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head. That's it. The rest don't even exist in the real world (well OK, there probably are slinky dogs and of course there are toy dinosaurs, but the toy dinosaur didn't have a brand name!). Woody the Cowboy is from what toy maker, precisely? How about Buzz Lightyear...the non-existent action figure? In fact, we saw exactly one brand name logo in the entire film...the Fisher Price phone.

My own take on the writing in this show - once again, the folks at Pixar managed to blend family-appropriate human themes (like the loss of innocence and wonder we experience as we leave our childhood behind for college and the real pain we feel when our usefulness is over or replaced) with plenty of adult-pleasing humor (like Buzz Lightyear's "Spanish Mode" and "The Claw!" to the rescue) to produce a movie that is deeply satisfying to all ages. Mr. White should try having FUN when he watches a film rather than getting into a competition with himself over how elite he can sound and how he can find a way to be unique from his fellow critics. I know, somewhere in his chest, beats the heart of the child he used to be. He should try to find that child.

One other final writing comment...everyone I know who has seen Toy Story 3 walks away saying they found the movie genuinely suspenseful. There are many moments where the audience is absolutely certain that some main character (or many) are going to be destroyed. The fact that we have such an emotional connection with these toys ought to tell Mr. White how strong Pixar is with human characterization. The fact that this script is able to defeat our usual movie-going assumption that no beloved character can really die unless it's "that kind of movie" and make us believe Slinky Dog or Mr. Potato Head or even Buzz Lightyear is about to die is a testament to the skill with which the plot of this movie was crafted.

Acting: 9.5

The all-star voice cast is largely back (minus a couple of unfortunate deaths since Toy Story 2 aired in 1999) and new characters like Lotso and Ken are cast with equal brilliance. There is only so much an actor can do with his voice, and a lot of the credit for the emotional resonance this film strikes has to go to the animators and the script writers, but Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, et. al., really do exemplify the character traits embodied by their toy characters. Woody (the deeply loyal companion for which Tom Hanks' voice is ideally suited), Buzz (the overpowered macho toy that represents modern boyhood so perfectly...who better than Tim the Tool Man Taylor! for that role?), Rex (one of the great comic relief characters around, played by Wallace Shawn of "The Princess Pride" fame), Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head...I mean c'mon...it's the perfect cast for these films!

Message: 10.0

No, Mr. White...the message is NOT consumerism. If you actually watched the film, then you'd know that Lotso turned evil when his owner showed that character trait and had him replaced! If anything, this movie and many other Pixar films including the first two Toy Story pictures wags its finger at greed as a character trait. Instead, the message is to take care of the things that brought us so much joy as children rather than discarding them when we're too old. Or...more to the point...the message is that there is something uniquely wonderful about this world through the imaginative and spirited eyes of a child...something lost when that child matures...something worth holding onto and remembering even when we've long outgrown out childhood things. Hint, Mr. White...half of the grown men among your colleagues in the business of film criticism say they left the movie thankful that there were some comic moments during the credits so they could dry their eyes and not look like womanly nincompoops on their way out. In the final scene where Andy hands his toys over to a good new home with a loving story for each of them, not one of my friends had dry eyes. There's a reason. And no...we're not just ignorant sheep buying into Pixar's formulaic film factory as you've said in other Pixar reviews. I wonder if you realize that you're burning bridges with your colleagues when you say things like that. I wonder if anyone you know truly appreciates you attitude toward your profession...or toward people in general.

Production Values: 10.0

Pixar's animation techniques have drastically improved since Toy Story hit the box office in 1995...but the team decided not to change the look of things in the third Toy Story installment, and I think that was a very wise choice. They kept the old look and feel of the original movies...had they gone with a spiffier modern look, I think the magic would have been lost. Whether it was intentional or not, the first two Toy Stories had a sort of childish look to them...as though we were transported into the eyes of our younger selves. Keeping that look alive for the third movie turns out to be more important to me than I realized.