When I watched Toy Story 3 last week, I couldn't shake the feeling I'd seen it all before -- and it wasn't just the similarities to Toy Story 1 and 2 that were ringing a bell. Then it hit me: Toy Story 3 is just like A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Steven Spielberg's underrated 2001 mess-terpiece. One is critically revered and destined to become one of the highest-grossing films ever, and one... wasn't. Still, they've got an awful lot in common. Spoilers ahead.
· Both Toy Story 3 and A.I. give us a glimpse of the good times our heroes share with their human owners, days full of love, playing, and imagination... and then, their human owners are just so over it. Sorry, plastic protagonists: you've been abandoned!
· Cast out of their homes, our heroes find themselves in an unfamiliar land. It's a good thing that they have an unlikely new tour guide: a plastic-haired Lothario who's been designed from the ground up to represent every woman's dream man. Something tells me Gigolo Joe and Ken would have a lot to talk about.
· Wouldn't you expect a teddy bear to have an adorable, kid-friendly voice? Instead, in both Toy Story 3 and A.I., they sound like your grandpa after a few too many decades of heavy smoking. Who knew teddy bears were so retired?
· But oh no, what's this? Just as the heroes of Toy Story 3 are locked up in day care and literally ripped apart for a screaming, vicious crowd's amusement, so too are the heroes of A.I. locked up for a Flesh Fair, where the mechas are literally ripped apart for a screaming, vicious crowd's amusement.
· Still, one thing to keep an eye out for during this part of both movies: an incredibly famous black comedian who somehow gets, like, only three lines in the entire movie. It was distracting enough when Chris Rock made a cameo as a doomed mecha in A.I., but it's just as confounding when Whoopi Goldberg plays the random purple octopus in Toy Story 3. What is she doing in such a nothing part when her voice is so immediately recognizable? The woman has an EGOT, for God's sake!
· Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, our leads go on a long quest to reunite with their original human owners. Woody is convinced that it's his duty to be by Andy's side, so he leaves the other toys day care behind at the day care, searching for a computer that can tell him where his next destination is. In A.I., after the owner-obsessed David leaves the other mechas behind at the Flesh Fair, he goes searching for the computerized Dr. Know, who can tell him where his next destination is.
· We're humming along in the third act and...whoa, whoa, whoa! What is up with this surprisingly dark (yet courageous) end that it appears our heroes are about to meet? What a ballsy place to end things, right? Not really -- they get extricated and the movie suddenly goes on for fifteen more minutes.
· And then, at the end, our heroes finally get what they've wanted all along: the restoral of love from the human owners who abandoned them. Is it permanent? No... in fact, they only get one single day to remind them of the old times they shared. Still, it's a perfect day, and at least that long dreamed-for experience will help ease their transitions into the great unknown.