Toy Story 3 Review

It’s been eleven years since the last Toy Story movie and fifteen since the first. As Disney’s representative at the jam-packed preview screening I attended pointed out, that’s older than a great deal of this third instalment’s audience is. Not that that appears to be any impediment to either the film’s success or the youngster’s enjoyment of it – Toy Story 3 (directed by Lee Unkrich) is every bit as masterful as its predecessors.

While the plot is perhaps a little familiar – Andy’s toys become separated from him and each other and must find their way home – a twist is added in that Andy is now seventeen and imminently leaving for college. What do you do when the person you’re trying to get back to doesn’t want you anymore? The air of melancholia that pervaded Toy Story 2’s best part – Jesse’s When She Loved Me montage – is writ large in this excellent film that studies separation, the acceptance of loss and maturity. It’s also a cracking film for children and oozes quality and likability.

As we have come to expect from Pixar, the CGI animation is simply stunning. The 3D effects have also been implemented with admirable restraint. The opening sequence, a train robbery that takes place within Andy’s imagination, is spectacular. Even the far-flung girders of an exploding railway bridge are things of beauty. This fun intro escalates wildly, like a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip and provides a nice reminder of all the characters you didn’t know you’d missed. Happily, more of the supporting players – Rex, Slinky Dog, Hamm, etc – are given much more to do this time around, especially Mr Potato Head, whose role becomes increasingly amusing as the film progresses. Andy and the other human characters are also given more time on screen than they have previously been given, which provides interesting new angles on the events of film.

There are also new characters to enjoy and Michael Keaton as the Ken doll absolutely steals the show in perhaps the funniest screen role this year. Other honourable mentions should go to the ever-excellent Timothy Dalton as Mr Pricklepants, the thespian hedgehog and character designer Bud Luckey’s turn as Chuckles, the grumpy clown. It probably goes without saying that the film is properly hilarious and not just in a ‘fart jokes for the kids, awkward double entendre/popular culture reference for the parents’ way (Shrek, I’m looking at you); the humour is pitched perfectly for everyone.

Perhaps the best thing about the film is the creativity and inventive spirit displayed. For the characters, a metal basket becomes a prison cell, a spinning toy a roulette wheel and a landfill site something akin to Dante’s vision of hell. Watching six inch toys navigate their way through our world is a tireless joy and I found myself urging the toys to find themselves in more and more scrapes, just to see how they would escape.

Toy Story 3 is not quite flawless – the increased roles of the supporting characters means there isn’t quite enough time to dwell on everyone and the aforementioned Pricklepants, Chuckles and even, to a certain extent, Buzz Lightyear are not given quite as much time to shine as I would have liked. And whilst generally tightly structured and quickly paced, the plot could have been trimmed of a little – though very little – excess meandering. Even if the film lacks the emotional heft of Up or the expressionist tendencies of Wall E, Toy Story 3 stands as one of the best in Pixar’s ever-increasingly excellent canon and is a more than worthy (final?) instalment in the Toy Story saga. Best trilogy ever?

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