Toy Story 5
It may not be the strongest installment, but Toy Story 5 comes close to recapturing the magic of the previous four.
Few major franchises have been able to maintain such a consistently high quality as Toy Story has. In fact, I’d argue that the first three films should be considered one of the greatest trilogies of all time. These are the movies that built Pixar. And while Pixar is not the juggernaut it once was, both critically and financially, their first eleven films struck a balance. These weren’t your typical big-budget kids’ movies; a vast majority of Pixar’s original output was just as much for adults as it was for children.
While Cars 2 was the movie that broke Pixar’s perfect streak, the studio has still gone on to make some incredible movies after that: Inside Out, Coco, and Soul are some of their greatest works. While Toy Story 4 and Inside Out 2 weren’t on the same level as their predecessors, they came relatively close.
When Toy Story 4 was first announced, many scoffed at the idea. Especially since the third movie had the perfect conclusion. But for Disney and Pixar, there was still money left on the table. And to be perfectly fair, the story was excellent. It served as the perfect epilogue to the saga.
History repeated itself when Toy Story 5 was announced. The fourth movie ended with Woody (Tom Hanks) leaving his friends behind to join his long-lost love, Bo Peep (Annie Potts), and help lost toys. Why mess with that ending?
Yet, Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton has seemingly cracked the code in finding the right story for the fifth installment. As technology continues to dominate the culture, it is only natural for Woody, Buzz (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), and the gang to face the dreaded “iPad kid.”
While the first three Toy Story movies struck the right balance between their growing roster of characters, Toy Story 4 pivoted. While the ensemble was there, the story was primarily focused on Woody, Bo Peep, and Forky (Tony Hale). Toy Story 5 follows a very similar formula. Woody is back, but he isn’t the lead this time around; this is Jessie’s story.
Bonnie Anderson (Scarlett Spears) is now 8 years old, and Jessie has been appointed the sheriff of Bonnie’s bedroom. Unfortunately, it’s a role that is not as easy as Woody made it look. Bonnie has been struggling to make friends, and despite her parents (Lori Alan & Jay Hernandez) and her toys’ best efforts, she is still incredibly shy and insecure. That’s when her father decides to buy her a tablet called the Lilypad (Greta Lee), which will assist her in making more friends.
Bonnie immediately becomes addicted to her Lilypad, which is a cause for concern for Jessie. She still hasn’t fully recovered from her original owner, Emily, leaving her behind. Jessie and Buzz are constantly bickering with the Lilypad, who tells them that she is just doing what is in Bonnie’s best interests. Besides, she’s growing up and becoming a little “too old” to be playing with toys.
Desperate, Jessie calls in Woody for help, who has been busier than ever with the rise of the “techs.” Their reunion is brief when Jessie and Bullseye go against orders and stow away in Bonnie’s suitcase to a sleepover, and Lilypad sabotages their plans. Jessie is taken back to the address of her original owner, which is now the home of Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), an 8-year-old girl who loves horses.
Jessie and Bullseye team up with a pair of rejected “techs” including the potty-training device Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien), Snappy (Shelby Rabara), a toy camera, and Atlas (Craig Robinson), a talking GPS shaped like a hippo, to find their way home.
Because of their high quality, reviewing a Toy Story movie is tricky. Toy Story 5 is, without question, one of the best animated films of the last several years. At the same time, it is easily the weakest of the five movies. There’s only so much emotion that you can pull from these characters. That’s not to say Toy Story 5 isn’t without several scenes that will bring the waterworks. The heart all stems from Jessie and Bonnie’s stories. We’ve done our crying for Woody, Buzz, and Andy (and to be fair, Jessie’s montage in the second movie also made many cry). It may not be as deep in its thematics as the previous two installments, but it is poignant and sentimental.
In fact, Toy Story 5 is the best use of the Bonnie character to date. The film gives Bonnie an actual arc, one where we can actually feel for her beyond just the fact that we care for her because her toys do. This is especially true with how the movie treats cyber-bullying. It isn’t phony in that kids’ movie way; the movie gives time for you to have empathy for Bonnie.
Beyond the laughs and tears, the Toy Story movies have always had something to say. Toy Story 5 goes full-force into how younger generations have become overstimulated by technology and screens. It doesn’t feel like an “old man yells at crowd” type message or one that is telling parents to throw their kids’ devices in the trash. It’s more nuanced than that. The movie goes to great lengths to show both the benefits and the very real issues that devices can bring to children. It’s a message more aimed at parents than it is towards their kids, telling them not to let their loved ones become too attached to the digital world, when there’s still so much to do in the real world and with their imaginations.
The new additions to the cast are terrific, especially O’Brien’s Smarty Pants and Lee’s Lilypad. O’Brien’s voice perfectly fits with the rest of the gang and delivers the movie’s funniest bits, including him acting intoxicated whenever his batteries are running low. Lee’s Lilypad isn’t played like a traditional villain; she is an antagonist, but the movie smartly finds ways for us to understand where she is coming from.
As the supporting cast of the franchise grows, certain characters are increasingly sidelined. Yet, even in the fourth entry, the story was contained and focused. This installment does veer off-course, including a sub-plot involving a group of rogue hi-tech Buzz Lightyear toys that are on a quest to find “Star Command.” The movie eventually finds a way to tie them into the central conflict, but for a majority of the runtime, they are tacked on. Their scenes are amusing and garner laughs, but it also causes Jessie, Woody, and Buzz’s storylines to lose their momentum.
Toy Story 5 does have a noticeably smaller scope than the other movies. It plays its story slightly safer; there’s no incinerator setpiece or Woody and the toys hugging farewell. On the other hand, it also doesn’t have an ending that says “goodbye” to the characters; it leaves room for more. Pixar knows they’ll inevitably make another installment, so it is nice that the movie doesn’t give us our third potential franchise ender in a row.
If you love the Toy Story movies as much as I do, if you are like me and are a fierce and dedicated defender of Toy Story 4, you’ll find enough in Toy Story 5 to warm your skeptical heart. It still has all the same charm, witty humor, warmth, immense heart, and lovable characters that made us all connect with the series in the first place.