Toy Story 3 (2010) Review

Time: 103 Minutes
Age Rating:
Cast:
Tom Hanks as Woody
Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear
Joan Cusack as Jessie
Ned Beatty as Lotso
John Morris as Andy
Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head
Blake Clark as Slinky Dog
Wallace Shawn as Rex
John Ratzenberger as Hamm
Estelle Harris as Mrs. Potato Head
Michael Keaton as Ken
Jodi Benson as Barbie
Director: Lee Unkrich

The toys are mistakenly delivered to a day-care center instead of the attic right before Andy leaves for college, and it’s up to Woody to convince the other toys that they weren’t abandoned and to return home.

It’s been 11 years since the last Toy Story movie, I remembered seeing it in cinemas but I hadn’t watched it again since. So watching Toy Story 3 recently was the second time I’ve seen it. On top of the animation looking absolutely fantastic, it takes some interesting story turns and directions. For a while it was the conclusion to the series, and it ended things off perfectly, which is probably why most people are so reluctant to the idea of a Toy Story 4, it’s hard to imagine a better ending to these characters and this story.

Considering that it had been 11 years since the last movie, it was very fitting that Toy Story 3’s story would be about Andy being grown up and moving on from the toys. I will say that so far it’s the least memorable of the series, but that’s probably because I’ve only seen it twice. It’s not really as funny as the other 2, but not necessarily because the jokes miss, just seem to be less of them, and I don’t really remember the movie for its humour (the Spanish Buzz Lightyear doesn’t always completely work though). Toy Story 3 is also significantly darker, even before it gets to the third act, and I really liked the places they took the story. The story with Lotso the bear running things at Sunnyside Day Care (where the toys end up) just gets darker and darker as it progresses. It eventually culminating in seemingly a sort of prison escape movie, and I really liked what happened in the movie overall. At an hour and 40 minutes long, it’s longer than the past movies but just as riveting. It also contains probably the most traumatic scene in the Pixar movie, I won’t say what it is for those who haven’t seen it, but it (and many other scenes in the movie) hit on a much deeper layer than the seemingly surface level scare and danger factor. And as for the end, I couldn’t think of a better possible ending for the movie and series.

The returning voice cast and characters return and are as usual good. Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles) and the usual cast, all work in their roles. It was also funny hearing Michael Keaton (who voices a Ken doll by the way) and Timothy Dalton (as a toy porcupine named Mr. Pricklepants) having some voice roles here. Lotso (voiced by Ned Beatty) is by far and away the best and most memorable of the Toy Story villains thus far. While it does the typical twist reveal of the villain that a lot of animated movies do nowadays, on the whole he was handled well in this movie. He is present throughout most of the movie, and has some form of backstory given to him as well.

Toy Story 2 in 1999 today still looks pretty good, not as good as most animated movies released today, but still on its own it looks great. However, you can really tell that Toy Story 3 was released 11 years later. From the very beginning the movie looks incredible, as it shows the scenario of toys being played with, however this time it’s different. We saw toys being played with in the two movies but you always saw what happened in real life, with Andy voicing the toys and all that. Here it’s like we are right in Andy’s imagination as we watch everything that’s going on. Even after that, from beginning to end, Toy Story 3 looks like it came out this year and not 9 years later, I can only imagine how phenomenal Toy Story 4 will look.

Toy Story 3 is a perfect conclusion to the series. It’s incredibly animated, emotionally satisfying and was overall everything it needed to be and more. Although I’m not certain about my ranking of the movies just yet, at the moment I’d say that it’s tied with Toy Story 2 as the best in the series. The Toy Story movies is one of the most consistently good movie series’, we’ll just have to see if Toy Story 4 lives up to its predecessors.

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