WARNING: This review may include very slight spoilers.
7 years after the previous instalment, the Toy Story franchise is back! But does it deliver? Toy Story 5 follows the toys facing the threat of technology and how a child’s addiction to said tech is affecting their playtime.
First of all, this movie is definitely Jessie’s movie, the character, voiced by Joan Cusack, receives the majority of the screen time and it’s about time! Being the deputy of the gang after Woody’s departure in the previous movie, she finds herself discovering this new threat and facing it head on. The movie explores her past, how this has affected her outlook on, you could say, the life cycle of a toy and how it repeats itself over and over, with this having an impact on the choices she makes throughout the movie.
I will say that I quite enjoyed Woody and Buzz taking a backseat, they’ve had their time, they still have some memorable moments and their banter remains, but it’s definitely not their movie which some may not like.
The animation does not boast the same quality of animation that we saw in the last movie, for all its faults, Toy Story 4 is gorgeous and they don’t try to match that, it looks good but nothing special, however the animation during the imagination sequences is very good, so vibrant, it looks quite fuzzy, reminding me of the texture you find on the characters in Inside Out, perhaps this was intentional, but with more of a 2D style, I dug these sequences quite a bit, it’d be nice if Pixar experimented with more animation styles on a regular basis, though next years Gatto shows promise.
In regards to the other characters, I expected more from Lilypad, voiced by Greta Lee, she gets a few moments to shine but their is a decent amount of time that goes by where you kind of forget that she’s in it, the issue with tech in this movie is it’s something that goes much further than Lilypad as a character, so they’re able to tackle it without her having too much of a presence, in parts. What did shock me was how much Conan O’Brien gets to do as Smarty Pants, an old Potty Training Gadget, him and the tech friends around him are seen as OG tech in a way, which Jessie also has an issue with, but Conan’s performance was a delight, with quite a few funny moments.
With more characters being introduced into the franchise, it’s natural that the ones we’ve grown up with taking a backseat, characters like Rex, Hamm, Slinky and Bo Peep don’t have much of a presence.
What I found interesting about the plot is the focus it has on cyber bullying, how it affects Bonnie’s confidence in regards to how outgoing she is about her love for Toys, I don’t think it goes as hard as it could when it comes to its criticism on tech and relying on tech to parent your kids, but it touches on it a little bit.
Overall, Toy Story 5 is an enjoyable instalment in the franchise, while, naturally, I don’t think it reaches the highs of the first three movies, some will definitely prefer it to the fourth instalment, it changes every now and then for me, but I think the plot is stronger here. The movie does struggle a little bit in the first and seconds acts, I have a few issues with the pacing, but I dug the third act a lot, it definitely found its footing eventually. I’d recommend checking this out, even if you’re still soured on the franchise after Toy Story 4.
I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this franchise just yet.
