6/24/19 - Toy Story 4 (2019) - 7+/10

Up until a week ago, I hadn’t seen a single Toy Story film. Why hadn’t I watched them before? I guess that it had just slipped passed me, and I never put the effort into going back and ingesting them. That was my mistake. What a fool I was.

This franchise is wonderful. Toy Story was good, but not great. Toy Story 2 was better. Toy Story 3 was fantastic. The evolution of the animation, the growth of the characters and stories, and the depth of emotion & weight set them apart. I am sure watching them back-to-back over a week aided my investment, but I am so terribly glad that I took the plunge and filled in this blind-spot. Rewarding and masterful.

Now, what about the fourth installment? Was it also as good as its Toy Story brethren?.. Yes. Of course it was. It was really good. Case closed.

Not really, but having absorbed all of them, essentially at once, I am not sure I can feasibly fully disengage my thoughts and feelings for the 4th at this moment. But, other than a general “darn good”-ness, there are a few elements that I wanted to touch upon. One being the voice acting. I appreciate so much that, in general, the characters and voice acting ability have taken precedent over star power. Sure, there are exceptions (Keanu Reeves in this one being a slight one), but much of the cast of characters is about finding voices to match and work with the film/story, rather than the normalized Hollywood efforts of using trendy/big names to sell an animated feature rather than the film utilizing and selling itself on its own merits. I didn’t recognize Tony Hale or Christina Hendricks until the credits, which I appreciated. The actors melted into their animated personas and let the film shine, not necessarily themselves.

I also really enjoyed the villain of this film in particular. The use of the creepy puppets aside, she does very little that is overtly villainous. Sure, she does some light kidnapping, but she is extremely nice and accommodating to her captive. She is kind, courteous, and despite being misunderstood in her relentlessly driven scheme, is only trying to find her truth and righteous path fulfillment. Her backstory and noble cause show her as a damaged and identifiable character; one of the best villains - the one her sees themselves as in the right and protagonist of the story.

It shouldn’t be a big deal, but the growth of Woody, Buzz, Bo Peep, and others as fleshed out and fully-formed entities really worked for me. Switching up the power dynamics and narrative thrusts with Woody/Bo Peep kept the overall story fresh and interesting. I appreciate franchises taking risks, however small, and keeping things moving forward. Stagnation and sameness are so often silent killers of my investment and engagement.

I wasn’t as enraptured with 4, as opposed to 3, but it still felt of a kind with the rest of the series and did plenty of very positive things, in both story, character, and technically. Some of 4 felt a tad formulaic, as the toys push further and further the boundaries of what they can do and the mission antes keep getting upped. That said, soul and growth are at the forefront of the story they are telling, which was an overall plus in my book.

Toy Story Rankings: 3, 4, 2, 1