REVIEW: Toy Story 3 Brings Series to Brilliant, Bittersweet Close
The adventure that follows enfolds most of the old, familiar characters (including the triple-eyed, easily awestruck Pizza Planet Martians) and introduces some new ones. The most brilliant of those is Big Baby, a scary discarded baby doll-turned-prison guard with one broken sleepy-eye and a scattering of crude ballpoint-pen tattoos on his vinyl arms and legs. Big Baby lost his cute little infant dress long ago; he now faces the world with only his naked, slightly grimy cloth body, trundling about on his fat curvy legs. Mostly silent and more than a little creepy, he's the ultimate discarded toy, the kind of character that makes you wish you'd actually listened to your parents, lo those many years ago, and not stayed up late to watch those episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery.
But unlike Night Gallery, Big Baby is funny too. The line between creepy and funny is one that the creators of Toy Story 3 -- which was directed by Lee Unkrich and written by Unkrich, Michael Arndt, John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton -- aren't afraid to walk, and occasionally cross. My sense is that often, even those who don't worship at the altar of Pixar (I don't) harbor at least a mild fondness for one or both of the earlier Toy Story pictures: Good-natured and clever (but not too clever), with nicely worked-out story lines, they're harmlessly charming and never cloying. Best of all, they don't wear you down with endless pop-culture references and double entendres.
Toy Story 3 is just as imaginative and as visually pleasing as its predecessors, and it's intelligent without constantly winking at us. This is a big picture that also takes care with the details: It even finds an ingenious use for Mrs. Potatohead's conspicuously missing eye. Occasionally, the action is a little too aggressive and manic. The perception in Hollywood today seems to be that movies need to be bigger and louder to hold kids' attention, and here and there Toy Story 3 bows too obediently to that idea. It's also somewhat frustrating that Toy Story 3 needs to be a 3-D extravaganza: I'm not sure the technology adds anything significant to the already-marvelous visuals (though it sure as hell adds to the ticket price).
Still, what's most remarkable about Toy Story 3 is that it manages to be both grand and intimate; it never lets its artistry, admirable as it is, get in the way of the story. Toy Story 3 takes a rather dark turn near the end (be prepared for this if you plan on taking really little kids), but the resolution is so funny and so joyous -- truly a "Sometimes there's God so quickly" moment -- that I don't think it will cause any nightmares. And the movie's coda, in which the toys discover a better future than they ever could have imagined for themselves, is just slightly bittersweet, a happy ending that's brushed with a few falling leaves of melancholy. Toy Story 3 is the kind of sequel that few of us dare hope for anymore, one that recognizes that bigger and louder isn't necessarily better. It not only maintains but magnifies the franchise's dignity and integrity. And in its world, even a dirty, naked baby doll is worthy of our compassion and understanding.
Pages: 1 2
Subscribe to the new Movieline on YouTube
Comments
The Dark Knight is better than Batman Begins
Nicely written review, though Lotso is definitely not blue. He's red--and strawberry-scented!
Nice review, Stephanie. I've been missing your witty, cunning writing on Salon. Just found out this is where you ended up. Cheers.
Duly noted, thanks!
It should give you nightmares. Two futures are presented in this film, one that will soon be familiar to the cast-aside -- a nightmare of being used, tortured and ruled over, without respite, until you're broken and finally gone -- and the other for those who have found some way to sculpt themselves to be relevant -- another couple decades of feeling vital to the future of the American dream. I think most liberals feel that if they continue to fight for the impoverished, to fully side with them, they risk joining the nightmare of junk, and sense that if they only persuade themselves Brad Bird-like that there is simply no hope for the damaged-to-the-point-of-grotesque, that they can continue to accumulate and thrive, enjoying even a sense of now rare election (in a suitably self-downplaying way, of course): it's simply the way of the times. Bird showed he was for construing society so that many of those who saw his films should probably rot, a few films ago. Wall-E showed Lasseter still moved by enough of something special, that he seemed still for all of us. Not here, though. Another liberal on the other side. May he at least feel guilt pains.
"It's vintage!": for safety, another clue to abandon your status as a hipster, and possibly as a homosexual.
Thanks for the fantastic blog. I look forward to checking back in.
I am not sure I agree with the last comment.
Thanks for the nice blog. I look forward to checking back in.
I am not sure I agree with the last comment.
saw TOY STORY over the weekend, and your lovely review, Stephanie Z. is right on the MONEY. AND did it make money....!
It was pretty good, but I think, rather than have Lotso summarize his worldwview to the the toys near the climax, I would have shown him alone with the baby more. The heros have a suprising nice chemistry considering the time that's passed since the last movie.
Great review! I can hardly wait to see it now. Thanks
Thanks for the fantastic writing. I will be returning.
To conclude, disagreeing with this brief review to any degree might possibly be censorship, and that is common for both you and your misdefined 19th-century agenda.
Stephanie, I've been missing you on Salon.com, but found you here. Your reviews, as always, are some of the best written in the industry. I agree wholeheartedly with your review of Toy Story 3, especially about the ending, and how it is mostly joyous, with a tinge of bittersweet. Hope you are doing well and enjoying it at Movieline.com, and will continue to be an enthusiastic fan of your film reviews.
her name is shannon, my friend from highschool and yeah.. smokin is right. sorry shannon haha
Good review, but you fluffed one plot point. The wild chase scene at the beginning is indeed a fantasy, but not the toys' fantasy while being unplayed as you write, rather Andy's make-believe taking place during the camcorder montage of his growing-up.
You completed several good points there. I did a search on the subject and found a good number of people will consent with your blog.