Toy Story 3

2010 cartoon

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 17/20; Dylan: 15/20; Emma: 20/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: The mouse is getting behind on his payments to keep Walt Disney's head cryogenically frozen, and after a failed attempt at a bakesale--failed because of pre-sale rumors abounding involving Goofy and perverse activity and cupcakes--they decide it's time to wheel out Woody and Buzz and the other toys and make another Toy Story movie. They struggle to find a plot and eventually decide to just redo the one from Toy Story 2 with a few twists and a whole bunch of new characters because then they can make a lot more money with action figures, etc. "Because kids," the mouse said, "will even want toys based on characters who were only in the movie for a few seconds."

Don't get me wrong though. I loved seeing a brand new Toy Story movie, and this has to be considered one of the most successful and maybe even the best trilogy of all time. Most of the success comes from the audience already knowing and loving all these characters. Parents and their children have seen the other two Toy Stories dozens of times, so you go into this third one with Woody, Buzz, et. al. already feeling like you grew up with these toys or that they're your best friends. If they are your best friends, however, you really should go out and meet some actual people. So there's no wasted time or need for a lengthy exposition, and the previously-developed characters just slide right into the newish story. Newish instead of new, by the way, because there are quite a few parallels between this and its predecessor. The story is a little tidier than number two, and the animation is a lot better than either of the others although the toys thankfully haven't been given any kind of technological upgrade to make them look better than the very first installment of their story. But the human characters look a lot better and move a lot more naturally than in the other movies. The parts of Toy Story 3 with humans (good to see Sid again!) really couldn't have been done when the first movie came out. And the atmosphere and backgrounds are also vastly improved, creating a ton more depth than we had the first time we met these guys. When the characters are in peril in this movie, like in a genuinely frightening and intense scene where they are about to die, the background textures add to the mood. Compare that with the most frightening scene in Toy Story when Woody and Buzz are trapped in Sid's scary room, and the atmospheres in this new one blow the old stuff away. There were a lot of allusions to the first two movies, including a lot of repeated lines which sort of annoyed me, and there was also a continuation of the references to the original Star Wars trilogy. I also appreciated the references to prison escape movies with the toys' busting out of a daycare center. There was also something going on in that scene that I couldn't stop laughing at, so much that I really started feeling like a fool after a while. There are a ton of funny moments in this, but there are some pop culture references that seemed a little too easy, and I got to the point where I'd cringe whenever Barbie and Ken were on the screen. With over three hundred characters, including a nod to the wonderful My Neighbor Totoro, the screen is just filled with stuff to look at. It's a feast for the eyes. As a parent, this was a strangely emotional experience for me, but a lot of the tears seemed a little more forced in this one than in other Pixar features like Up. Very good movie, and like most Pixar movies, I look forward to seeing it again.