REVIEW:
Toy Story 5 was terrific. Thank goodness for that, considering the last two entries in the series (Toy Story 4 and Buzz Lightyear,) were both large disappointments. It was starting to look like this series was running out of steam, after we spent the last movie at an old pawn shop and then at a carnival, pursuing spectacle more than story. But here, in Toy Story 5, story is back in a major way.
The movie is about a new generation of “toys,” that are more digital devices. Chromebooks and video games. Kids play on them, chat on them, and generally seem glued to their screens. This is a sad reality of our current life, and for the first time in a long time, this movie and this series are right on point.
The device that poses a threat to the toys is called Lily. For Bonnie, the owner of the toys that were once Andy’s (in the first three Toy Story movies,) Lily changes everything. Suddenly she has friends and is in group chats, and even gets invited to a sleepover. Only the girls that Bonnie engages with aren’t exactly nice to her. At one point they even forget to find her during a game of hide and seek.
You’ll notice that we are talking about Bonnie more than the toys here. That’s important. It’s as if the Toys sacrificed themselves, or the writers sacrificed only making things about the toys, in order to tell a more meaningful and important story.
That being said, the toys definitely have plenty to do. In fact, there are many times throughout this movie where there are a whole bunch of plots to follow, all happening at the same time. For example, there is a story of an army of Buzz Light Year toys that washed up on a beach and are now in pursuit of Star Command, or finding meaning and purpose. When Bonnie goes on the sleepover, Jessie goes with her. Only Jessie gets separated and brought to her old owners house by an elderly couple. So now we are following the Buzz Lightyears on the move, Bonnie at her sleepover, Jessie at the house of the old owner, and then there’s also the toys back at Bonnie’s house, facing off against Lily.
These stories are all pretty clever and interesting. Jessie ends up being the toy with the most story here, as she becomes the bridge between Bonnie and a new friend, the girl who lives at Jessie’s old owner’s house and plays with horse toys. This movie has so much going on that even includes cyber bullying, when Bonnie goes searching for her old toys (when the toys use technology to put out a message saying she is looking for her missing toys,) and the girls from the sleepover get wind of this message, and start making fun of Bonnie. There are lots of heart-wrenching powerful moments like that.
In nearly every Toy Story movie so far, the villain was a major part of what defined that movie. In the first movie it was Sid, the kid who destroyed toys. In the second it was a collector, voiced by Wayne Knight. In the third, who could forget Lotso Bear, the evil creature who tried to burn all of the toys alive. In the fourth, it was Gabby, a giant doll girl. But in this fifth movie, we don’t really get a villain. And that’s a good thing. Lily is certainly not a villain, although she does have one or two moments early on where her actions are questionable (at one point she sends a message to Bonnie’s dad, pretending its from Bonnie, asking him to put all her toys in a box and leave them in the garage.
But Lily comes around pretty quickly and joins the fight to help Bonnie make friends. Which means she is definitely not a villain. And what that means is that with this movie, the creative minds behind this story decided to break the mold. It goes a long way. This is solid movie from start to finish.