Toy Story 5 review: Hilarious, provocative and destined for infinity and beyond

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Toy Story 5

Directed by Andrew Stanton

Written by Andrew Stanton and Kenna Harris

Featuring the voices of Joan Cusack, Tom Hanks and Tim Allen

Classification G; 102 minutes

Opens in theatres June 19

Critic’s Pick

The Toy Story franchise is the best and worst enemy of Hollywood.

On the con side, the manner in which the Disney-owned production company Pixar keeps rummaging inside the series’ closet, desperately looking for new ways to keep the property going in the face of all narrative and emotional logic, is emblematic of the very worst tendencies of contemporary studio economics. Add a cute little Malibu Stacy-like hat to one of Woody and Buzz’s pals – or, perhaps, just a plastic spork – and bam! You instantly have a guaranteed money-maker. The financial success of Toy Stories 2 through 4 is partly why audiences must now contend with such woefully pointless copy-and-paste “live-action” Disney remakes as The Lion King, Snow White and the forthcoming Moana, which looks so dreadful it may very well kill the whole subgenre dead. (As Maui says, “You’re welcome!”)

Yet despite the deepest wishes of someone such as, say, Quentin Tarantino – who famously refuses to watch any of the Toy Story films past the third instalment, which he views as the perfect conclusion to the series – moviegoers should also be grateful that the Pixar brain trust has been so persistent in its Corinthians-like refusal to put childish things away. Unlike just about any other active franchise, either under the Disney corporate umbrella or not, Toy Story persists not because it must, but because it should.

While Toy Story 4 was no match for the sheer emotional power of its immediate predecessor – children’s psychiatrists have been in business for years thanks to the third film’s Holocaust-coded climax – it was still a deeply sweet and purposeful addition to the Toy-verse. And not just because it introduced audiences – and toy-aisle shelves and Amazon wish lists – to two perfect new characters in Forky (Tony Hale), a neurotic plastic utensil, and Duke Caboom (Keanu Reeves), a sop to Canadian fans who’s also genuinely hilarious.

That 2019 film was so good that, by the time that producers announced the inevitable fifth instalment, even the most cynical filmgoer could accept there was a reason here beyond mere merchandise-centric economics. And with the exception of one or two minor factory-issued design flaws, Toy Story 5 is the must-have item of the summer: a poignant, beautiful, imaginative and massively entertaining adventure for anyone who either has children or retains a semblance of memories from their own youth.

The story picks up not long after where the fourth film left off. Most of our favourite playthings – Buzz (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), Forky (Hale), and Hamm (John Ratzenberger, remaining in the Pixar family despite his decades-long loyalty to ousted chief John Lasseter) – are now in the young hands of Bonnie (Scarlett Spears). Woody (Tom Hanks) and Bo Peep (Annie Potts) are out in the wild with Duke, helping discarded toys find new purpose. Wisps of Randy Newman’s You’ve Got a Friend in Me dance along the score. Everything is well and good in the world.

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Except when that world starts changing, with “tech” beginning to worm its way into every child’s bedroom via tablets and smartphones. Soon enough, Bonnie – having a difficult time finding friends who still want to play with plastic dinosaurs and spacemen – is given an iPad-like device named Lilypad (Greta Lee) by her well-meaning parents. Quite quickly, the toys are forgotten as Bonnie is sucked into a screen-time vortex riddled with social-media anxieties.

Can the toys, especially Jessie, learn to coexist with screens, or are the playthings doomed to irrelevancy? More importantly, at least for longtime Pixar director Andrew Stanton and his team, is childhood as we know it being eroded by Big Tech’s false promises of progress for the sake of progress?

The ways in which Toy Story 5 manages to both unfurl a wild comic adventure at the same time as it explores the complex tensions of modern childhood – while also acting as a grand experiment in brand nostalgia – represent a remarkable balancing act of cinema and commerce. It is hard to overstate just how sharp the entire endeavour is, up to and including the filmmakers’ surprising decision to pivot the story not around Buzz or Woody but Jessie.

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Providing a full-circle moment for the cowgirl, which will leave most audiences in puddles of tears, the film leans heavily on Cusack’s ability to seamlessly shift from contagious joy to indignant rage. The actress, who hasn’t done much acting since Toy Story 4, must have recognized the power of the material, too. This is a movie worth coming out of retirement for.

Yet the film also provides wonderful moments for every single other character, and a handful of new ones, too. The best is a potty-minded (if not quite -mouthed) doohickey voiced by Conan O’Brien, though there is great fun in meeting a long discarded action figure named Combat Carl, who is given big-game energy by Ernie Hudson. And then there is Lilypad her/itself – a scarily efficient slab of artificial intelligence that recalls Jessica Rabbit: She’s not bad, she’s just drawn that way.

While a subplot involving an army of next-gen Buzz Lightyears that are shipwrecked in the middle of the Pacific Ocean initially feels like the result of a note from Disney executives demanding more action – or perhaps it’s just Allen’s desire to one-up the Cast Away bona fides of his costar Hanks – the filmmakers figure out a way to gently slip that piece into the larger puzzle.

By the end of it all, you’ll alternate between crying, smiling, laughing and – if you’re of a certain age and familial position – intensely re-examining your own parenting strategies.

It is not hyperbole to suggest the film’s honest depiction of every mom and dad’s nightmare/godsend – the digital babysitter that is “screen time” – may very well effect real-world change in how children are raised. Then again, the movie is also so slickly engineered you just might embrace the cognitive dissonance between message and product as your kids mainline the film on their Disney+-enabled iPads.

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