Toy Story 5 Review

We live in an age of nostalgia and franchises. Hollywood is so focused on the ever-growing bottom line that they keep going back to the same bone-dry wells that have been dug into for decades at this point. There is so much fatigue from how many franchises are still around that it’s somewhat nauseating. And yet, I feel that at some level, Toy Story might be the sole exception. It could be how it feels like far more effort and insight go into these movies, or that they still feel like they touch a part of childhood that most of its kin can’t. Either way, we have a new Toy Story film to talk about. I had previously covered both my concerns and eventual intrigue over this movie, so why not cover it in full now?

This movie follows the toys after Toy Story 4. Woody had decided to leave with Bo Peep to help lost toys and fulfill a new purpose in life after feeling stuck. He leaves Jessie in charge of the room, and she has to contend with a new treat to playtime: technology. Bonnie is struggling to make friends since most of the kids she meets use devices and see toys as things for little kids. This results in her parents getting her a Lilypad tablet, and Bonnie ends up being fixated on the screen and not playing with her toys. Jessie tries to help alleviate the situation, but she ends up back at the home of her old owner, Emily, and has to confront a lot of the fears and insecurities she has about herself.

One of the best things about this movie is that its approach to discussing tech, while simple, does not take a broad, one-sided argument. Technology and devices have been a hot button of discussion in the past decade or so, since parents have seemingly given over the old ways of stimulating and developing their children to the screens, with very negative results. This film does show how kids can basically become too attached to their screens without proper control over use. How they don’t do much outside of that, and how it creates limiting habits. Bonnie is unable to express who she is with most kids and can’t connect with them due to their fixation on screens over regular play. The point the film makes about tech is that while it can do everything, people need balance to express themselves fully. However, this film also says something about how tech can still have its important uses for kids. Bonnie and Jessie’s issues start with tech, but through the same tech, Jessie can find someone who does connect with Bonnie on the same level of imagination and play. Tech needs to be used properly. Sometimes for fun, but it can also be used to help connect people who would have never gotten the opportunity to. If this film does even a little to get parents to reconsider some of the habits they let their kids create with their screens, then this film has done its job.

What helps set this film apart from the other four, character-wise, is that the main focus is on Jessie. While 2 and 3 did give her a lot of focus, she did feel somewhat sidelined compared to other characters, and 4 did a poor job giving her anything to do. Frankly, for how interesting and deep a character she is, it was long overdue to give her the spotlight in one of these movies. What is the most interesting aspect of her characterization here is that her past of being donated plays into a different element of her character. Before, she showed resentment and fear of having to go through the cycle of being loved and forgotten by a kid. Here, however, there is insight into how she has insecurity about herself as a toy. Her fears about failing Bonnie stem less from being tossed out like with Emily, but from seeing herself as doing a bad job for being there for her kid and believing that failure in that endeavor makes her a bad person. It’s a very nuanced and powerful way to look into her emotions, and really does feel like a character study we needed to dive into, much like how 4 looked into how Woody ticks.

Woody comes back, but they thankfully don’t roll back 4’s ending and just let him be there to help a friend. Buzz gets a lot of focus since he wants to propose to Jessie and is written probably the best since 2, both in terms of character growth and in personality. The two both work well together and bicker like old friends. The new characters include LilyPad, the device Bonnie gets. She is fun in her snarky demeanor, and I appreciate that they make her a character with flawed but good intentions who initially believes that what she offers as a device is what’s best for her before coming to terms with how said usage affects Bonnie. There is a trio of tech toys that Jessie works with, highlighted by Smarty Pants, a toilet training tool played by Conan O Brian. The rest of the old toys don’t get as much focus, but I do feel that is probably a good thing. We have focused on them a lot in the previous films, so just having them be there to round out the cast instead of crowding things out is good. There is an army of high-tech Buzz Lightyears who open the film and are under the delusion that the first Buzz was. They are fun, and they do have some great thematic moments as well as a pretty tasteful reference to Bambi when they encounter forest wildlife.

Another element that caught everyone’s eye was the sequences that simulate what the kids are imagining during playtime. Not only does it harken back to the opening sequence of Toy Story 3, where the characters get to be showcased in a different sort of imaginative setting, but this is also much different visually. These sequences are presented in a paint-like style of animation that minimizes detail and emphasizes abstract colors and textures. It almost feels like a more detailed version of a kid’s drawing and plays into the heightened elements of these sequences. Not only is this great as a sort of experiment for Pixar to play around with new animation styles (which will be fully utilized with next year’s Gatto), but it also continues the path of this series evolving alongside 3D animation. The series has always reflected the growth of computer animation, either in detail or in technique, so having parts of this movie emulate the recent trend of stylized 3D animation is a good way of continuing that, considering how we’ve basically reached the ceiling regarding realism.

One thing I genuinely didn’t expect was how well Bonnie was written as a character. She was very much created as a torchbearer for the toys and it was likely that the series didn’t plan on giving her any depth beyond that, considering that 3 was the intended endpoint. Here however, we get a really in depth look at insecurities and emotions that many kids deal with especially regarding socialization and self-perception. Bonnie’s struggles with her peers are derived from how others see toys as something immature and can only tangentially connect with them through the ecosystem on her tablet. While kids dismissing something as something for babies could be seen as odd, it is something that kids do deal with. Many kids want to be seen as older or, at the very least, more mature than what others see as childish. They want to connect with their peers and may repress themselves to line up with them. The emotional low point of the film is when the other kids she knows find out about her toys and make fun of her online about it. It’s genuinely heartbreaking seeing Bonnie just unable to shake off how upset she is, and that she can’t reconnect with her toys and the way she used to have fun.

I do genuinely appreciate where this film goes and what message it says, but I do feel that the other films carried themselves in a bit more of a nuanced manner. Everything here works and connects very well, but I had the feeling that something was missing, and I’m not entirely sure. Maybe it was that the other films do have a lot more immediate pathos with what they focus on, while 5 does meander a bit. Said detours are fun and creative and do build into what the film is saying, but I guess I prefer it when it is a bit more balanced. Toy Story 2 has Buzz and the gang try to find Woody in a mostly gag-centric subplot, while Woody is dealing with a lot of heavy conversations about what being a toy should be and if he should take the risks of dealing with a kid growing up. 5 doesn’t quite feel as balanced with how it approaches its themes like the first 3 until it starts to piece together by the 3^rd act. That isn’t a bad thing, but it does stack weaker compared to the other films that do balance the fun and pathos of the series much better.

Overall, this was another story worth continuing the series for. While it doesn’t quite match the original trilogy or the depth that 4 brought, it makes up for it with a really strong focus on how technology has changed our relationship and how we interact with others, as well as a great character focus on Jessie. Like the similarly strong Inside Out 2, this film being this good honesty makes me fine with the series still going as long as it’s carefully handled. I don’t really think we would get more than one more, though, simply because of how old the voice actors are getting at this point. Still, given the choices, I’d much rather get another film like this instead of the vapid, empty live-action remakes or the middling efforts from Marvel and Lucasfilm. I do have hope that Pixar is going to continue to improve its work after the rough start to the decade. They struggled to get audience attention despite quality work due to Disney+ eating into the box office and Disney foolishly throwing some of their original movies on there. Both this and Hoppers prove that the studio can still make original films that do connect with audiences, as well as make sequels that do feel meaningful. In an age where kids’ entertainment is pretty shallow and inconsequential, I do appreciate that we still get films like this that try really hard to entertain and give pathos to a lot of topics kids can relate to. Even if we didn’t really need it, I’m glad that this film was made since it’s a reminder that kids’ films can still be fun and make you think. I hope we keep getting this level of quality from Pixar going forward, since it’s sorely needed both for the audience and for themselves.