Here’s what happened when I took to the internet to belatedly push a product that everyone in America has already tasted. Hey you guys, ever heard of vanilla ice cream? It’s yummy…
I didn’t write about Toy Story 3 when it was released this past summer because we had another writer cover it for the site, and besides: What is there left to say? Toy Story 3, now on DVD, is probably the best-received movie of the year, and certainly one of the most popular. It’s great. Who could argue? I guess that’s why people get into the whole debate over which Toy Story movie is the best one, which to me is a massive waste of time. This isn’t the Olympics. There’s no gold, silver, or bronze. It’s okay to like all three movies in a series equally, or at least to not use up valuable brain diskspace on debating when there are millions of better questions to ponder.
What separates Toy Story 3, and what makes it so unusual in the realm of adult-friendly kids movies, is the concessions to the passage of time. Fifteen years have passed in the real world between Toy Story 1 and Toy Story 3, and nearly as much time has passed for the characters on screen. Andy, the boy who owns Cowboy Woody and Buzz Lightyear, is now packing for college. Buster, the family dog, is now gray and slow – it’s revealed as a sight gag but there’s a sadness to it also. This is kind of how it goes with Toy Story 3, it has smartly-observed melancholy moments mixed in with the laughs, and I guess why so many people reported why the movie brought them to tears – caring about characters in a movie series isn’t entirely unlike caring about people in real life: Allowing yourself to care about anyone or anything means that you are allowing yourself to be endangered by the pain that can come when that person or thing goes away.
That sounds pretty deep for a kids movie, sure, but that’s why Pixar is on such a winning streak, pretty unprecedented for a creative filmmaking collective. They’re the folks who made a movie (Up) about a retired widower into one of the most popular movies of 2009. And now we have Toy Story 3, a movie about loss and goodbyes and moving on, and as usual, about friendship and how that can save you. In Toy Story 3, Woody and Buzz and the whole group of toys from the previous stories are about to be split up – Andy is going to college and he isn’t taking them all with him, if any. Through a series of events familiar to any family with grown children, the toys end up at a children’s day care center, which starts out looking like an idyllic Florida home for retired toys, but turns out to be a waking nightmare of careless and hyperactive children, crayons to the face, broken pieces, and no support from one’s fellow toys.
The tour guide to the new realm is a big purple teddy bear named Lots-O’-Huggin’ Bear, voiced by Ned Beatty, who is one of the two best characters in the movie. Lots-O’-Huggin’ has the stately, stentorian tones of a Southern gentleman, but also a hidden mean streak a mile wide. He’s not the friendly father figure he might initially appear. We learn how Lots-O’ became who he is during an extended origin sequence. The fact that Toy Story 3 makes room for a secret origin of an evil teddy bear is one main reason why I enjoyed it so much. The fact that its plot is really one extended riff on The Great Escape, one of my favorite movies, is another. Of course our heroes aren’t going to take this lying down – they want out. But it’s no easy escape.
Another complicating factor is Ken, voiced by Michael Keaton, who is the other great introduction to the series. He’s a constantly-smiling, vain, double-talking tuppie (toy yuppie?) who sets his sights on Barbie, who joined our gang back in Toy Story 2. Is he for real? Is he trying to lead her to the dark side, while letting her friends go to the junk pile? Are they truly soulmates? Does that ascot go with those shorts? A major source of fun in Toy Story 3 comes out of those moments, and let’s note again (as we did when talking about The Other Guys) how very good it is to have Michael Keaton and his particular brand of energy and anarchy back in movies, in any form.
Somehow it all comes together without seeming like too many characters. The movie is fast-paced, fun, and affecting. I’m not saying anything you probably don’t already know – seems like everyone I know has seen Toy Story 3 by now. But in case you didn’t know that it landed in stores this week, now you do. Just in time for [[two months of stores pushing it for]] Christmas!
