General Review: Toy Story 4

Hello, ‘Spongey here.

It’s time for our yearly Pixar movie and it’s a doozy. It’s the last one for the 2010’s and it’s a sequel. Fittingly, it follows up on their first film for the 2010’s.

I’ve talked plenty about the Toy Story trilogy and how 3 capped things perfectly, and complimented the others very well. It also started the trend of Pixar sequels, which will end soon as the 2020’s will be full of original ideas.

But before then, another Toy Story cuz why not. Look, you don’t need me to tell you everyone thought this was not needed and seemed slightly cash grab-y. Even I wasn’t really for the idea, as a Part 4 really did seem excessive.

After 3 movies and 2 specials, where do you really go from there? The troubled production full of last minute re-writes didn’t seem to help either. I had no doubt it would be decent, I just wasn’t sure if it would really prove it needed to exist.

But thanks to recent clips and reviews, I’m more excited to see what they have in store for us. Either way, it will be fun to see these characters again and to finally see one of these on the big screen.

Besides, if a movie is good and at least tries to present good ideas, it doesn’t matter if it “needed” to exist. Anyway, for our two credited screenplay writers, one is Andrew Stanton, a Pixar mainstay who did WALL-E and Nemo/Dory. The other just did a couple Star Wars Resistance episodes. There’s plenty others credited for the story though.

The director has this as a debut but of course he did some Pixar work before, like writing some of Inside Out.

So, does Part 4 of this Toy Story manage to keep the high quality of the previous 3? Let’s see.

This, is Toy Story 4

Woody and the gang are living a happy life with Bonnie, when one day she creates a toy out of a spork, which she names Forky. Woody tried to help him cope with existence but they get lost on a road trip and Woody has to tangle with a figure from his past.

I hate to parrot quite a few reviews….but yes, they managed to pull this and make a really strong 4quel. I have thoughts, and it may be hard to keep this organized but we’ll what I can do.

First, the flaws. It does involve some repeating (it’s basically the 2nd movie with bow Woody gets lost from the others) and while it can go into different directions, it can leave some people with a feeling of “Been there, done that”, especially in the middle. The other toys each have at least one good moment, but are otherwise very sidelined, even more than in the 2nd film.

I feel that helps streamline things a bit, as giving them too much to do might have made the story cluttered but even to me I could forget they exist at times. This goes back to being Woody’s story and I get that a lot of people, including myself, preferred it when it was everyone’s story.

And for as good as Forky/Tony Hale is, he isn’t as fleshed out as the earlier trailers might make it seem. Without going into too much detail, it’s not as much about the meaning of life as I thought it would be and he can almost feel like just a device to get us into the story.

On a more amusing nitpicking note, these humans are both patient and stupid. They will wait for as long as they need to look for their toys until they happen to come back, while I would have left long ago. There’s so many moments where they should have been caught, I swear, lol.

But that aside, there’s plenty to get into here. I’ll skim past the animation because you know by now it’s great. They have perfected their craft at this point with how realistic everything can look, with great and varied designs on the toys. So we can move on to the meat.

We’ll start with the more minor things. The humor is really good, with a lot of laugh at loud moments all over the place. That’s one thing I’ve come to expect at this this point from these movies, especially with the voice actors are being top notch.

Key and Peele are as good as I was hoping they would be. The movie does a good job with these side characters as they play the role they should in moving things forward and don’t take over the movie too much. Keanu Reeves is one example where he plays a great role as a daredevil but he simple gets in his jokes, moves the story along and we move on without needed to just make it his show for 20 minutes.

The pacing is quite tight, moving from scene to scene very well and keeping things going, and it mixes all the elements well. While in the middle I was wondering what the big take away would be, I was still never bored and felt it wasn’t focusing too much on one certain aspect.

This gets in to how they really just have the charm of these movies nailed. I feared they might skip a beat due to a new crew but everything is as it should be. Every characters acts how they should, and they remind of certain moments while not just repeating everything.

This could have been one of those cynical “remember this?” movies but the way it’s executed manages to simple capture that feeling of the other movies. At times it brought me back to being a kid watching the first two, and rarely made me go “boy, the other ones sure did this better”.

One interesting aspect would be the villain, They thankfully don’t wait to long to reveal that they are the villain and they end up having a solid personalty and arc. They stand out from Pete and Lotso despite almost seeming to tread similar ground.

This really ties into the main theme of the movie, which parallels the previous films super well. Woody has been known to be quite stubborn, really loving his situation with Andy and feeling that making him happy was the most important thing.

In the first movie, he learned to share the spotlight a little, and that making Andy happy is more important than WHO makes Andy happy. 2 has him finding out he’s an important collectors item and that owners sadly do move on from their toys and questions if going to a museum would be a better place for him.

The 3rd film had him really wanting to go with Andy to college in some way and acknowledging that he has to move on from him, and finding a new owner to stick with. He believes no toy should be left behind and that even if life with an owner is fleeting, he wants to make the most of it.

That all comes to a head here, as the plot starts with him hitching a ride to school with Bonnie because he is just that stubborn, and when Forky is created, he is glad she has a friend to play with at school.

Going on from there would go into spoilers, but this movie really has Woody’s views being challenged and goes deeper into things they touched on before. The 3rd film did an excellent job at that and I’m pleased they found a new angle, somewhat.

Maybe not new entirely, but a new way to look at it. I first rolled my eyes at that start, as it seemed Woody was relapsing after everything he’s been through but they managed to justify it with how the story played out.

It leads to a 3rd act that really brought things home and connected everything together, especially when it comes to the themes. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen have been talking about how emotional the film it is, and how hard it was for them to record certain scenes.

It figured it would be emotional but also thought they were just playing ti up to get people excited. It turns out they were right. Holy crap, a certain scene near the end got me super hard.

It helps that it had some tear jerking moments beforehand that built up to it, but what they do is really brilliant. It was a very smart and refreshing decision on the writers parts. The final note was basically perfect.

In hindsight it was clear it might go there but I’m still glad they went with it. Regardless of any small bumps there were, the final detestation makes the trip worth it.

So yeah, they came up with a clever way to keep the themes intact while adding a new twist and that made this a very well crafted journey. This movie relies a lot on that big takeaway to justify this story being told.

They did a solid job at doing that. Plus, the new locations are fun to explore, and Bo Peep was cool. I was worried they would try too hard to create a female role model but the extra backstory they give her makes her fleshed out. She also helps with the themes.

By the way, I love the little dialogue moments in this. There’s some great parts of the characters that talking that fleshes them out naturally, like a scene of Woody and Forky on the road for example.

It really seemed like they did know what they were doing, despite the production troubles. I feared it would feel like just a mash up of elements they couldn’t fit into the first three but even parts that could have fallen into that end up fitting it naturally, like with Keanu Reeves as I said.

I’ll admit my attachment to the other movies played a part in me liking this as much as I did. I pointed out the problems of course, but I could there being others I was blind to, especially when it comes to certain rehashed elements.

However, the overall package really ended up being strong. I was as skeptical as everyone else and figured it would be simply pretty good with some strong elements. I can see someone feeling it is that way but something about the 3rd act alone managed to pull it up. Either way, it managed to justify its existence just by keeping the quality intact.

Toy Story 4 keeps the high tech animation, lovable characters, great humor and heart that made the original trilogy so excellent, while adding the themes as well as fun new characters and reintroducing an old one.

I’m so glad this ended up being so good, as it showed they went the extra mile and picked a route that would allow for extra growth, instead of just repeating everything. There’s some of that but only as much as there needs to be to get us to the ending.

And a powerful ending it is. I really don’t want a 5 so hopefully they stop here and maybe make some shorts at best. The only thing to really do though is finally have a human find out toys are alive.

I mean come, imagine a toy having a human an an ally as a human finds out out about the crazy stuff they don’t see, not to mention that Bonnie proves humans can just create life out of very little.

…Fanfics aside, check it out. Nothing more to say.

Rating: Great

Between LEGO 2 and this, toy based animated films sure are surprising me this year. Regardless of how I rank this, I did enjoy it a lot and was really satisfied with how it ended.

Also, there’s some fun mid credits stuff and a post credits bit that was totally worth it. Stay to the end. So there you go, those toys are still in great condition, despite all odds.

Next time on the general reviews, we’ll be far from home.

See ya.