The problem with sequels isn't always, necessarily, that they're worse than the movies they're piggybacking onto. Some -- The Godfather, Part II, The Empire Strikes Back -- actually improve on their predecessors. The worst thing about sequels is the air of desperation about them, which often starts gathering long before they're actually released. Particularly in this economic climate, everyone in Hollywood wants a hit, so the marketing machines for big summer sequels kick in early and hard. As a way of protecting ourselves from disappointment or, worse yet, heartbreak, moviegoers tend to respond with a mix of anticipation and suspicion. Which is why, in the past few months, plenty of us have been asking, "Do we really need a Toy Story 3?"
The answer, which may surprise you as much as it did me, is that we do. Toy Story 3 is a jailbreak adventure, a meditation on the need to move on to new things even when we're not quite ready for them, a comedy that, at last, revels in the cracked genius of Ken doll outfits. It's also funny without trying too hard, the kind of movie in which a character -- in this case, Tim Allen's Buzz Lightyear -- can say with a perfectly straight face, "We respectfully request a transfer to the Butterfly Room" and make the line work. A sequel made with care and integrity, Toy Story 3 is just moving enough: It winds its way gently toward its big themes instead of grabbing desperately at them, and because its plot is so beautifully worked out, getting there is almost all of the fun.
The movie opens with an elaborate, somewhat garish Wild-West adventure in which Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz, along with cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack), Mr. and Mrs. Potatohead (Don Rickles and Estelle Harris) and the rest of the gang must save a train full of orphans (that is to say, about 100 identical, wide-eyed Wishniks) from certain peril. But these crazy acts of derring-do are pure fantasy: The toys haven't been played with in ages -- they languish, forgotten, in the toy box -- and now that their owner, Andy (John Morris), is heading off to college, they face a future of attic storage or, worse, being tossed into the back of a garbage truck.
After a series of mishaps and misunderstandings -- and after accepting a discarded Barbie doll (Jodi Benson) into their ranks -- this despondent group end up at a day-care center named Sunnyside, where the toys in residence greet them with a friendly cheer of "New toys!" A pudgy if somewhat saggy pink bear with a voice straight out of Tennessee Williams country welcomes them warmly -- a bit too warmly -- to their new home, a place where, he promises, they'll once again be played with. Lotso Huggin' Bear is his name (his voice belongs to Ned Beatty), and he introduces our heroes to his fellow inmates, er, friends: Some are very old and battle-scarred and have seen it all (like the Fisher-Price Phone, with its world-weary, perpetually rolling eyes). Others are of more recent vintage: A '70s-minted Ken (Michael Keaton) welcomes the gang to his "dream house," whose features he proudly details with the wave of one very stiff arm, the most wondrous of these, in his estimation, being "a whole room just for trying on clothes."
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.