Toy Story 3

The hottest streak in Hollywood continues, as Pixar Animation Studios presents its 11th feature film, reassuring any naysayers with a patented blend of original storytelling, wit, and heart. It's fitting that their eleventh home run is a conclusion to the story that started it all. In 1995, they premiered the original Toy Story, the first entirely computer generated animated feature, and ushered in an era; an entirely new possibility to telling stories. Over the last fifteen years, the advancement of technology is utterly amazing, but it's Pixar's ability to remain truthful and honest in its storytelling that keeps it all fresh and the bounty all the more glourious. It's hard to believe that fifteen years have passed since we first met dutiful honest cowboy Woody, daring space ranger Buzz Lightyear and the gang. I was a mere 11-year-old movie nerd in training, and since then the Toy Story films have in a way grown up with me. Toy Story 2 upped the ante slightly and remains a touchstone in the right way to develop a franchise-- the conclusion here in 2010 is a fitting and poignant end of a delightful series of films.

The nostalgic factor works in interesting ways, and the keen storytellers at Pixar realize this, and never make it feel mushy or manipulative. Many of said that Toy Story 3 has the ability to make grown men and women cry uncontrollably. I admit fully and honestly, it's true-- throughout much of the film (particularly the touching beginning and positively wrenching finale), I lost it. Tears come flowing down in ways that in my 25-year-old brain thought unthinkable. But the beautiful aspect of it is that they're all earned. Part of it is the human experience of growing up with a beloved film series, for sure, but also the honest realization, that Pixar nails, is the process of growing up is never easy to anyone, even the toys that belong to young Andy, now heading off the college, who just want to played with-- that's what they're for, that's their livelihood.

Of course walking into this theater, I had high expectations-- after 11 successes (well, ten-- Cars was a slight misfire), there's always a panic of meeting too much of good thing, and from all the good Pixar has shown, the pessimist in me feels the other shoe will drop some day. It wasn't this time. Aside from being a heavy emotional experience (honestly anyone who's ever loved the other two films, or had an attachment to anything ever will probably lose it, as I did), it's also a great adventure story, just as the last two were. As Andy is packing up for college, there's a widespread panic in the toy community-- what will become of his old friend, now mostly discarded to the chest (an amusing bit with Andy's cellphone starts the realization that this isn't the same little boy anymore)-- will anyone make the journey with him, sent to the attic, donated, or worse off, thrown away?

A calamatious set of circumstances sends the toys off the Sunnyside Day Care, which looks slightly like an old-folks home crossed with an insane asylum. There the gang meets a whole new set of discarded, forgotten toys. These include Lotso, a big purple teddy bear (voiced by Ned Beatty, a Southern charmer whose not who he seems), Ken (voiced with absolute vapid perfection by Michael Keaton), and hordes of others presenting Sunnyside as the perfect place to bask in the golden years. Off course that not at all what it becomes. The middle section of the story is played as parody of The Great Escape but the adventure never feels throwaway for a second, largely because it's cast of characters are already deeply rooted aspects of not only are individual childhoods, but also a part of the spectular filmic universe that Pixar has surrounded them with. There's geniune pathos in this escape-- I dare not to write out of hand, but parts of Toy Story 3 almost feel like Shakespearean tragedy.

The voicework, always a refreshing aspect of a Pixar movie for they always seem to cast approiapately not always with movie stars, remains as endearing as ever-- Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Beatty, Keaton, Don Rickles, and the rest (close observers will notice that Barbie is voiced by Jodi Benson, or Ariel from The Little Mermaid.) I take that back about movie stars-- the Toy Story franchise is the one that uses the most, but point is valid. Larger credit must go to director Lee Unkrich and screenwriter Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, and Pixar neophyte) for keeping the balance between action and tenderness completely complementary without one ever over-doing the other. Watching the joyous third part here makes the Shrek series even more embarrassing, especially considering they gave up on the story after the first one, and kept the self-references become the movie, something Pixar has largely avoided, making them feel all the more timeless (there's a cute song cue when Ken and Barbie meet to the tune of "Dream Weaver," but that's the only pop culture in-joke in the entire film.

Watching Toy Story 3, makes me all the all the reflective about not the films that I've loved for a decade and a half, but also of my childhood toys. In an odd way I feel like a neglectful, unimaginative sociopath for the simple fact that I don't know where any of them are anymore. So the negative side Pixar's genius, is that I've cried my heart out, and now am thrusted with a guilt complex....thanks a lot. A