Toy Story 5 is in theaters on June 19.
Woody, Buzz and the gang are back in theaters for Toy Story 5, a fourth sequel to Pixar’s flagship franchise that proves no matter how well you wrap up a story, there’s always room for more. This time, the now-very-antique toys are faced with their most dangerous challenge yet… screen time.
But how necessary was this sequel? And how can the brain trust at Pixar successfully pull these toys out of the attic again? To find out, I took both my film critic hat and my kids (7 and 11) to a press screening of Toy Story 5.
Right off the bat I can say that the movie does Pixar proud in the visual department. It isn’t quite the revolutionary jump in graphics that Toy Story 4 had over its predecessors, but the usual Pixar bump is there. In fact one scene that starts with an establishing shot of the sky and trees and a school bus had me thinking for a split second that they’d actually shot some real footage for the film before kids from the uncanny valley came running into frame.
My son had a quote about that as well… “better grafics.” He almost got it. To be fair, he took my notebook in the middle of the theater and wrote it in the dark, so there’s a chance he knows how to spell it right.
My kids were very excited to tag along to this press screening, but less so when I started asking them questions on the ride home. My daughter, who just finished fifth grade, said it was starting to feel like homework, and I had to remind her that this was, in fact, my job and yeah, it’s a little like homework.
For starters, it’s difficult to talk about Toy Story 5 without a heavy dose of context for the entire franchise. Obviously it’s a sequel and there are four movies worth of story to keep in mind, but more than that this is a franchise that has had two separate occasions to wrap up in a pretty satisfying way. There are crowds of people who would agree it should have just been a trilogy, ending on Bonnie’s porch at the end of Toy Story 3. And while Toy Story 4 started the conversation of “why are we still doing this” for some, it defied the odds and put a decently neat bow on the franchise again, and with even more finality.
‘Why do we need a Toy Story 5?’ is a bigger question than ever.“
So “why do we need a Toy Story 5?” is a bigger question here than it has been even for other long-running franchises. That is, fair or not, the hole that this movie was starting in for me. For my kids, though? Not so much. In fact, their least favorite entry in the franchise is the widely beloved Toy Story 3. But my daughter had a very interesting reason for that – one that leads me back into this review proper.
First and foremost, a Toy Story movie, and I would argue a Pixar film in general, needs to be fun, and Toy Story 5 certainly trots out some fun moments. The animation style of Bonnie’s imagination and the scenarios she concocts while playing with her favorite toys is maybe the strongest of any such sequence in the whole series. And from a battalion of stranded next-gen Buzz Lightyears trying to find their way back to Star Command to forgotten toys wasted in the wake of tech, there are plenty of memorable laughs. Conan O’Brien in particular is hilarious as Mr. Smarty Pants, a potty-training assistant.
In fact, the trio of new characters – including Smarty Pants, the kids-first digital camera Snappy, and Atlas, a map device that’s, for some reason, a hippo – were my daughter’s favorite characters in the entire movie, and I can’t really argue with that. They’re a blast. (They also do one of my favorite Toy Story things, which is questioning their own existence in a legitimately terrifying way.)
However, on the balance this movie may be more of a downer than it was fun. There’s a maudlin sense of dread that hangs over most of the first half of the movie, where a real sadness revolves around Bonnie and her inability to make friends that can meet her where she’s at. Now, this was something that my daughter and I had an interesting conversation about. After Bonnie’s parents get her Lillypad (Greta Lee), her first tablet nervously purchased as a way to help her connect with all the other kids in her orbit who already have one, Bonnie’s online dynamic in a chat group goes pretty immediately bad. My kid and I talked about who was to blame for it – the bullies who were being mean, or Lillypad, who served as an easy conduit, providing access to Bonnie for the bullies. She actually blamed Lillypad, saying, “It’s important to know who good people are in real life.”
There’s wisdom beyond her 11 years in that, and I’m proud of her, but also she agreed it was the iPad’s fault, so joke’s on her – she’s getting less screen time from now on. Meanwhile, my 7-year-old son said, “I like how the tech took over,” so… I guess for sure less screentime for him too.
And, to finally get back to my daughter’s point, the other thing a Toy Story movie needs is a good villain. To quote her thoughts on Toy Story 3… “I hated that the villain was just evil the whole time.” I thought that was an interesting take because Lillypad, for her part, is doing what she thinks is best for Bonnie which, based on the conversation my daughter and I had, makes placing the “villain” label on her a little more difficult. She’s a stand-in for the idea of technology causing kids to grow up too fast, not necessarily the antagonist in and of herself.
Now, I think that’s in the Pro column for this movie, as some of the franchise’s best moments are from villains who see the error of their ways and are big enough to pivot. I would argue Tom Hanks’ Woody actually represents the best version of that in the original Toy Story because he was straight-up the bad guy of that movie, but that’s probably a different article.
Toy Story 5 Images
Toy Story films also need a relatable phase of life at their center – something universally experienced, like growing up, leaving home or letting go. These are all things just about everybody can relate to without any extra direction from the filmmakers, and Toy Story 5, for at least the first half, is very much missing that universality. Growing up with social media is a modern and I suppose widely relatable experience that wasn’t around 30 years ago when the first Toy Story came out. But instead of being about “remember how it can be difficult to be a kid?”, a lot of Toy Story 5 is more focused on “kids these days and their screens, amirite?” The difference there is that Toy Story 5’s statement feels like it’s the filmmakers’ telling us about it instead of letting us get there emotionally ourselves. The result is an out of touch-ness that is, quite frankly, surprising to see from Pixar. For a lot of the film’s runtime Toy Story, very uncharacteristically, doesn’t have much to offer to the conversation about young people’s relationship to their screens and there’s not a lot of the real emotional stakes this series has been trading in for four movies prior to this.
To be fair it doesn’t let parents off the hook either. As a remote worker myself, I felt properly seen and criticized by a scene where a parent is just shouting “you’re muted” while parked in his home office on zoom. It’s difficult though to take the critique too seriously coming from Pixar, a company sprung from the same Steve Jobs that brought us the iPad in the first place. But that also might just be me being defensive. But I followed up about this scene with my kids and if it reminded them of me, to which my son said “oh 100% totally. It wasn’t funny because it was work.” So the movie does have its finger on the pulse of human connectivity in, lo, these modern times to some extent.
This movie did not need Woody.“
I know I’ve been more negative than not about this movie for like 1500 words now, but really the second half of Toy Story 5 is much better. A lot of what I like about it and how the movie lands gets into some spoiler territory, so it’s just harder to get into detail about it. Before I attempt to though, I feel like I have to call out everybody’s favorite cowboy. This movie did not need Woody. It’s a testament to the job the franchise has done of ending in a satisfying way twice now that he feels so tacked on in this one. In fact, it’s enough to make me wonder if he wasn’t even in the early drafts of the movie, until an exec got hold of it and said, “put the cowboy in, you maniacs.”
You could lift Woody straight out of the movie and there would only be two differences. Number 1, the movie would be maybe two minutes shorter. He’s got no business to do off on his own that affects the plot in any meaningful way. And number 2, it would actually help out Buzz (Tim Allen). This movie wants so badly to be a two-hander between Buzz and Jessie (Joan Cusack), and it almost pulls it off. But when Woody comes back and starts hatching plans, it takes away Buzz’s agency. Buzz could’ve taken a next step into responsibility, adulthood, leadership, whatever box needed to be ticked for one of those universally relatable life phases that Toy Story has always hung its hat on. Instead, he just kinda keeps following orders and it feels like an opportunity was missed in favor of rehashing some of his and Woody’s old dynamic.
Now, again, pretty much all of my issues with this film are in its first half, but I think that’s also in part because I was dreading how they were going to attempt to stick the landing. But happily, the second half of the movie manages it a lot better than I’d feared.
From the midpoint of the movie, Toy Story 5 really starts to nail the things Pixar does best. It’s adventurous, with well-choreographed and stylish action, and just a lot funnier. The heart of the movie finally shows up to deal with things like what it means to really make meaningful connections or the distinction between games and actually playing. Woody also starts to fade into the background, leaning into more of a comic-relief role than being front and center, and, surprise surprise, the film is better for it.
Most importantly, after all the hemming and hawing about “what’s to be done with tech,” the film finally takes a stand. It’s not an overly ambitious one, or even one that will surprise you, but it was very necessary to walk out of the theater feeling good about it. Ultimately, Toy Story 5 does have something to add to the conversation beyond old guys shaking their fists at clouds about “kids and their tablets these days.”
But speaking of kids and their tablets, mine apparently have not had enough of Toy Story. I asked them what they’d like to see in a Toy Story 6 and my son just started yelling about needing Spoony to join Tony Hale’s Forky and his knife bride Karen Beverly (Melissa Villaseñor). He kept getting louder and doing different goofy voices every time my daughter would try to chime in. But finally she was able to articulate just wanting more Toy Story. Couldn’t get more detail out of her than that. Maybe it’s the idea that she, like Andy or Bonnie or, it would seem, Pixar, just can’t bear the idea of leaving these toys behind.