TOY STORY 3(G)
***** (out of 5)
June 18, 2010
STARRING
Tom Hanks as WOODY
Tim Allen as BUZZ LIGHTYEAR
Joan Cusack as JESSIE
Ned Beatty as LOTSO
Studio: Disney/Pixar
Directed by: Lee Unkrich
BY KEVIN CARR
Listen to Kevin’s radio review…
How dare you, Pixar! How. Dare. You.
For the past fifteen years, you have given us nothing but fantastic, heartwarming, beautifully animated and wondrous films. You take some of the most obscure and out-of-the-box concepts – like flying houses, stranded robots and a scream factory run by monsters – and you make them relateable, fun and irresistibly charming.
Enough is enough. Some people would say it’s impossible for a film production company to make eleven movies over the course of fifteen years and have all of them be hits. Impossible, I say!
It’s bad enough that “Toy Story 2” was one of those rare films that was just as good as – if not better than – the original. But after waiting eleven years, you go ahead and deliver a third installment of a series that is as much on the level of the other two that all three films could be considered perfect.
That hasn’t happened since… well, let’s just say it hasn’t happened. Ever.
Can’t Pixar just take one for the team and stop making fantastic movies? It becomes so boring to write reviews each year about how wonderful their films are. It really isn’t fair for other studios who are constantly playing hit-and-miss with the moviegoing public. Doesn’t Pixar think someone else deserves to live in the spotlight for once?
There is only one explanation. The Pixar people aren’t human. John Lasseter likes to stroll around the office in his Aloha shirts and big, beefy smile. But this is not the work of a regular human being. I submit that Lasseter and the rest of the Pixar crew have to be sophisticated robots created by an outside enemy to lull us into a sense of acceptance and emotional bliss.
How else can you explain “Toy Story 3”? I mean, you’d think that a story about a boy going to college and facing the decision of selling, giving away, storing or pitching his beloved toys would be too sappy to endure. But no. It’s charming and warm, and when the toys finally make their way to the Sunnyside Day Care Center to endure the harrowing account of what many toys face when they make it to the toddler room, you can’t help but feel for them.
This has to be a trap. Not even “The Godfather” series or the original “Star Wars” films have such a consistent and stellar track record. I demand a Congressional investigation into the entity that is Pixar Animation Studios. They must be drugging the American water supply or pumping euphoric chemicals into the air. Because having a film that can make you laugh, cry and cheer is simply impossible to do three times in a row for a series… and eleven times in a row for an animation line.
Even now, I’m struggling with the overpowering effect of the Pixar mind-controlling abilities. Can I possibly be writing these next words? I know I’ve done it for the last two years, with both “Up” and “WALL-E” topping my best-of-the-year list.
Must… resist… can’t… resist…
“Toy Story 3” is easily the best movie we have seen in 2010.
Sigh… when will this end?
Podcast: Play in new window | Download