TOY STORY 3

Funny, charming, moving, heartfelt and gorgeous to look at, right from frame one through to the end of the closing credits. I absolutely loved it.

As a Pixar superfan, I was very much looking forward to this sequel, which took some eleven years to get to the screen, and I was not disappointed. The premise is simple and surprisingly poignant: best pals cowboy-doll Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) and space-ranger action figure Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen) find their futures in question when Andy, the boy who’d loved them for years, grows up and prepares to leave for college. What will become of all his once-beloved friends?

After a packing/storage mix-up, the toys – including all the regulars like cowgirl Jessie (voiced by Joan Cusack), nervous dinosaur Rex (voiced by Wallace Shawn) and the Potatos, Mr. and Mrs. (voiced by Don Rickles and Estelle Harris) – all mistakenly end up being donated to the Sunnyside daycare center. At first, the place seems to be a toy’s utopia, with an endless stream of children and infinite hours of playtime... but it’s ever so slowly revealed to be a living nightmare for our gang of heroes.

A huggable stuffed bear named Lotso (voiced by Ned Beatty) runs things for all the Sunnyside toys and, like his environment, his friendly, cheerful exterior masks a more sinister reality lurking just beneath his fun fur. Woody is lucky enough to escape the daycare, but Buzz and the rest of the toys remain trapped – stuck on the inside, desperate to get out.

What unfolds is an action-packed adventure very much in the vein of a prison-break flick, with the toys hatching scheme after scheme to get out of one predicament after another. Stunningly beautiful visuals perfectly complement the increasing sense of urgency as one tight spot for the toys almost immediately leads to another, even tighter one – the ante is consistently upped from one scene to the next, which keeps the pace brisk and the audience’s interest piqued.

The story is thoroughly engaging, packed with humor and overflowing with brilliant detail (as all Pixar films are). A wealth of new characters are added to the mix, as well, including: metrosexual Ken (voiced by Michael Keaton), a stuffed hedgehog (voiced by Timothy Dalton) who wants to be an actor, and a nefarious octopus (voiced by Whoopi Goldberg) with eight sticky limbs.

Oh, and speaking of nefarious characters: there were a few moments in the film that might freak out or scare very-young viewers. Some of the perils faced by the toys are punctuated by ominous music and dramatic (i.e., thunderous) sound effects, and there’s one new character who already seems to be universally hated: the wind-up monkey. My movie-going pal, who’s a grown man, leaned over to me at one point during the screening, when said monkey goes berserk, and said, “This is going to give me nightmares.” So, be forewarned if your wee ones are skittish.

Save for the petrifying primate, though, everything about Toy Story 3 scores. It’s a beautiful tale of friendship and loyalty woven into a more subtle story about the end of childhood, growing up and moving on. There are more than a few moments that will make tears well up in your eyes, and the quiet but deeply effective final scene still puts a huge lump in my throat when I just think about it.

It’s an excellent film. Pack your Kleenex and get yourself to a theater.