I've read an awful lot this summer about how it's been a terrible summer for movies. Indeed, the list of films I've wanted to see lately has been a short one, and nothing on it has sent me running to the theatre. But you can't be a parent and escape TOY STORY 3. And given Pixar's sterling track record for high-quality films that entertain kids but move adults on a whole different level, why would I want to miss the third film in this trilogy, anyway?
I'm glad I didn't. TOY STORY 3, I'll bet, is the answer to this summer's quality film crisis. Unroll the now-well-used banners for Pixar once again, because they never seem to truly falter. You can try to put the Pixar films in quality order all you want (and I've seen these lists starting to circulate), but the difference between the best Pixar film (usually listed as "The Incredibles" or "Wall-E") and the worst (typically "A Bug's Life," maybe because it was the first one?) is minor. It's a fight between 3, 3 1/2, and 4-star movies.
TOY STORY 3 is somewhat predictable as soon as you are given the plot point that Andy, the owner of the now-famous playthings, is headed to college. It's fairly obvious that this third chapter in the story will be about what happens to these toys when a boy grows up and moves on and has no real need for them anymore. And, sure enough, the plot provides the forks in the road you would imagine; either the toys are going to be stored in a box in the attic, thrown away or donated. TOY STORY 3 flirts with and then deeply explores the merits and drawbacks of these options.
Part of the Toy Story charm has always been the Homerian adventure that these toys go on when something goes wrong. Toys are smaller than people, naturally, and it takes a lot longer to cover human ground, especially when your feet are bonded to a plastic base, as is the case for the little green soldiers. Early on in TS3, in fact, the soldiers parachute out of Andy's window, smart enough to realize that they will be the first to go...trash. Not even a consideration for donation.
But what of the rest? Woody finds himself to be hand-picked by Andy for a box of items heading to college, presumably fated to be a bookshelf ornament to provide Andy's dorm room with a reminder of home. The other toys soon convince Buzz Lightyear, however, that being played with is the most important thing, and a new life in a day care center filled with play-ready children is the opportunity of a lifetime. Nothing, of course, ever goes as planned, and the daycare experience quickly morphs into the Dante's Inferno of childcare, complete with a bitter, jaded and dirt-worn purple stuffed bear deceivingly known for loving hugs.
I could say more about the plot, but because everyone knows these characters so well already and, as I mentioned before, the basic story trajectory is mostly what you'd expect going in, I don't want to say too much. Lest you think there are no surprises, the final act of the film throws some harrowing twists in and the jokes and bits in the film are funnier and more frequent than in the first two Toy Stories combined. At least a dozen times, I had my cheek in my hand and said to myself "this is brilliant!" or "how clever!"
TOY STORY 3 is now also becoming famous as a film that goes on a short list of movies that can make a grown man cry at the end. To that point I will simply say: GUILTY. I silently wept into the back of my 4-year-old son's t-shirt for the last 10 minutes of the movie, lamenting everything from growing old myself to missing the sheer power of the free-floating imagination of childhood to the thought of my own kids having to grow up.
What I'm not sure I was sad about at the end, though, was saying goodbye to these particular toys. I am smart enough to know that although the ending here is decisive, these are Disney characters, which means never having to say goodbye. But, as I've mentioned already, Pixar excels at working on multiple levels, so missing these particular toys when the third film ends stands as the simplest form of sadness, while adult-level grief can spiral off from there into nothing short of a crisis of aging and mortality.
TOY STORY 3 was a treat -- that rare film that is actually worth every penny you spent on it, and those pennies have really stacked up with today's movie prices. I must honestly tell you that, though I saw it in 3-D, this time I do not feel that the added dimension provided any extra thrills, as I strongly believe it did with "How To Train Your Dragon," the last great children's film I saw. Save yourself those three extra bucks.
The question rolling around in my mind now is: where does TOY STORY 3 fall among the Pixar line, and among the all-time greats in family film entertainment? The answer, right now, is that I'm not sure. A large part of me hesitates to place it above films like "Wall-E" and "The Incredibles," and maybe even "Up," because this film had the advantage of building off of a known entity rather than creating a whole new universe. And yet, how can something so old be so fresh?
What I feel more sure about at this moment is that TOY STORY 3 is quite possibly the greatest third film in a trilogy that I've ever seen. And that in itself is an accomplishment. Stay tuned for award season, when the voting critics will likely confirm this as the most-loved "3" of all-time, too.
4.0 out of 4
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