I went into Toy Story 4 thinking it really didn’t need to exist. Toy Story 3 was a perfectly good send-off to the series, packing an emotional punch and a conclusion that reminded us all we have to grow up and say good buy to our youth. And this from someone who saw 20+ Marvel movies, a dozen X-Men flicks, and all these live action Disney remakes and thought each should exist just fine. But Toy Story 4? Naaah… so I went in with a dubious, suspicious attitude… and it turns out, hey, sometimes you just get it wrong.
Because Toy Story 4 is a good film… maybe not a great film… and doesn’t exactly try for part 3’s emotional highs, but gets pretty close. I was surprised – and pleased – to see Pixar do it again. I don’t like every Pixar movie (*gasp*) but they do pretty consistently remind us why they are so much better than other animation studios. That maybe flicks like Angry Birds, UglyDolls, and even the passable Secret Life of Pets are just not trying hard. Pixar aims high, sometimes doesn’t succeed, but always tries.
So Toy Story 4’s plot is kind of similar to the past three movies and involves an evil toy, a rescue mission, and it’s all kind of been done before. They just change the motivations a bit… which sounds like a cranky, negative reaction… but it really is all in the execution. Pixar and this returning voice cast are all on point. The toys and CGI have never been in more perfect form… and Pixar’s dust technology is on point (serious germaphobes might have an anxiety attack over the dirt pile up in the film’s antique shop… but it looks SOOOO good).
The movie adds a new character named Forky, the new toy created from a spork and random pieces of arts and crafts and garbage. Since this invented malformed *thing* is considered a toy, it gains unwanted, horrified sentience. Forky doesn’t want to be alive and immediately has an existential crisis that Woody has to talk him down from. The sheer madness of the reality of this toy universe has never been so on display… not only is Forky a Frankentein’s monster who hates life, but Buzz is back to being slightly crazy, realizing he has no inner voice to help make decisions. And another toy has no voice box so she think she’s can’t find a child to love her… and a small army of ventriloquist dummies have no hands to hold them up and have no voice to speak for them.
But this is a happy movie where we’re probably not supposed to think about all this (except for Forky’s existential horror). But it’s still fun to think about. I mean, Keanu Reeve’s voices a new character call Duke Kaboom: Canadian Daredevil. He’s clearly modeled after the 1970s Evel Knievel stunt toy… which makes me wonder if he HAD been an Evel Knievel toy, would he think he was actually the real life person… or would he know he’s a toy of the real life person? What if they had a Han Solo toy… would he think he’s Han Solo, a toy of a character in a Star Wars movie… or would he think he’s Harrison Ford? Or a toy of Harrison Ford? I wish Harrison Ford had been in this movie and not Secret Life of Pets 2.
OK… so that’s a tangent… but it’s all in fun. Because this is a fun and funny film. But it also has emotional resonance. It’s villain character has more depth than expected and actually pulls some emotional punches that I didn’t see coming. And the end, while not on the level of Toy Story 4, still matters and has real heart. Sure, it kind of sabotages the message of Toy Story 3 a little.. but also symbolically represents another stage of growing up.
So, yeah, despite my misgivings, this is a remarkably good film. If you also think it’s just a money grab, well it kind of is but they absolutely do not phone it in. It’s well worth seeing. It’s fun, it’s charming, the voice cast is giving it their all, and you might come away with some of that Pixar on-point CGI dust in your eyes.
Score: 85