Toy Story 3

I don't have a lot to add to what I said last time I watched this. I'm impressed again by the economy of the script and how it pays its due to the themes and relationships of the first two films. There isn't a single beat that happens just because it "has to"; everything comes first and foremost out of character.

To rehash: The first Toy Story movie sets up a world of sentient toys and their relationships to their kids, and challenges its two heroes by having them compete for position of alpha, all while teaching them the nature and value of being a toy (and not a real space ranger, or cowboy, etc.). It's clearly a story about new toys and favorite toys -- that is, it's about a toy's novelty. The second movie considers the nature of toys as collector's items and mass-produced consumer goods, and it challenges and threatens the characters' idea of what they think a toy should be. It's clearly about the middle-stage of a toy's life and about lost toys -- that is, it's about a toy's legacy. And here, in part 3, we explore what happens when toys aren't wanted anymore, we challenge the faith and loyalty toys put in their kids, and we deal with some hard truths about the finite nature of love, youth, fantasy, and devotion. It's clearly about the final stage of a toy's life, retiring, moving on, and being forgotten; it's about the finite lifespan of things, even if those things are cyclical -- and so, if Toy Story is about novelty, and Toy Story 2 is about legacy, then Toy Story 3 is about a toy's mortality.

I put this on after a discussion of how dry the year has been. There's been a good number of good films, but a dearth of great ones. Not many have risen above in that way where I can pretentiously say, "Wow, now this is cinema." What I mean is, not a lot of films feel like they'll be discussed ten years from now. The Social Network maybe, and on a smaller scale films like Winter's Bone and The Ghost Writer. And then there's Scott Pilgrim and, of course, this film -- which led me to say, only half kidding, "Hell, maybe Toy Story 3 really does have a shot at the Best Film Oscar this year." (In truth, I'd put my money on The Social Network, but nothing feels remotely like a lock.) So I watched it again. It's certainly worthy of a nomination, though it feels weird to reward a part-three of anything, even one so goddamn strong. (Though it wouldn't be the first time.) Anyway, it holds up to a second viewing, without question, and actually moves a lot faster than I remembered. In fact, it kept my attention long after when I should have gone to bed.

Toy Story 3 *

I generally don't like movies trying to encapsulate the "four quadrants" of moviegoers. There's just something about a movie that aims to "have everything" (romance, action, tragedy, comedy, adventure, philosophy) that makes it hard to like -- usually aiming for something so broad leads to an unfocused mess of a story with many shoehorned-in elements just to please different types of viewers -- but the truth is, when a movie actually nails all the things it aims for, even (especially) if/when it aims for a little of everything, it makes for a pretty satisfying film.

Where Toy Story 2 did it right by expanding the characters, the world, and the themes in just the right ways, 3 wraps up a trilogy-arc in a really, really satisfying way, by taking us to the inevitable conclusion: the end of Andy's childhood and the end of his need for such toys. And 3 does something I haven't seen a Pixar movie do yet, which is really go dark and a little nightmarish at parts. Sure, the "cannibals" in Sid's bedroom were a little nightmare-lite, but act two of Toy Story 3 doesn't really pull its punches in terms of pathos and visual terror, and act three ratchets the stakes up as high as they can go and then some. It's a bold move with a safe franchise to explore dark places like this, when it could have easily just spoonfed the audience something easy and unchallenging, rehashing or overcomplicating the themes and conflicts from the previous two films, and still make all the money in the world. Plus, then to acknowledge loss and maturation -- that's actually something cartoons almost never do in this country, and something Disney hasn't broached that I can remember since the glory days. People grow up. Loss happens. Sometimes there is no happy ending to choose. (Of course, the movie cleverly gives us the happy ending we all want, but only after making its characters make difficult and painful choices.)

If I had any complaint (other than fucking Randy Newman and the return of "You've Got a Friend In Me," though I found the Spanish version less painful), it's that the humans don't really make any sense. If you look at it from the toys' perspective, Andy and Mom and Molly and Bonnie all act just as they (the toys) deserve them to, but if you look at it from the humans' perspective, there's something fishy about a boy who's in love with his cowboy doll for so many years and has no human friends of his own. But like I say, the characters we care about are the toys, and how the humans treat them makes a certain kind of emotional sense from their perspective, and they are given what they deserve for their trials and tribulations, and so I can't really fault the movie too much... still, part of me wishes the humans made more human-logic sense as the trilogy unfolded over the years.

I've got to be honest, though: over all, this movie was pretty astounding, and probably the greatest third in a trilogy/series I've seen. Whereas Up and Wall-E were great with fairly major script flaws and seemed indicative of a Pixar willing to delve into broad emotion and good-old-fun at the expense of character and story, Toy Story 3 proves that the studio that made Ratatouille and The Incredibles still has it. I know Up was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar and won Best Animated Feature last year, but this is the movie I think deserves those accolades. If you were thinking of releasing an animated feature film this year, you might want to wait until 2011, because this is not one you want to have to compete with. It's just that good.

Seen at the Regal Lloyd Cinemas.

Toy Story 2

I gotta give 'em credit, this is what a sequel ought to do. If you're going to do a sequel, I think you're obliged to go deeper into character, deeper into your world, and deeper into your themes. Here we expand on the mythology of both Woody and Buzz and while we're at it, we explore deeper layers of each character's identity and crisis from the first movie. Each has a legacy. Woody is the older, rarer, grandfathered-in toy, whose "origin" opens up; Buzz is the newer, flashier toy, whose modernity leads naturally to mass-production, newer models with fancier gizmos, and video-game tie-ins. Both get new characters to populate their little sub-worlds. And better still, both expand on the idea of what it means to be a toy (being a collectible as well as a plaything; having a zillion versions just like you). And on top of all that, the story does what a sequel has to do: it takes the first story and turns it on its head. Now it's Woody who has to be reminded he's "just a toy," but for a whole new reason, and we even get to revisit (for laughs) Buzz's arc from the first Toy Story through the eyes of the New Buzz. Pretty fuckin' smart there, Pixar.

But honestly, every time Randy Newman's god-awful song "You've Got a Friend In Me" came back, with lyrics so painfully, egregiously spot-on that it threatened to sour the movie, I hated it more than the previous time. There is no excuse for that song to exist, or for his lyrics to be a part of the Toy Story experience, and I fucking already dread the fact that this song (and surely new songs with equally blatantly expository lyrics) will be a part of 3. Other than Randy Newman, though, I've got no complaints.