A lot has happened since the first Toy Story in 1995, when a cowboy-sheriff doll named Woody, voiced by Tom Hanks, worried that a space-ranger action figure named Buzz Lightyear, voiced by Tim Allen, would replace him in the affections of their young owner, Andy. Every Toy Story since has touched on similar themes: about the fickleness of kids, the inevitability of change and the totemic power of the toys we grew up playing with.
By the end of Toy Story 4, Woody himself had decided to move on. Along with his beloved Bo Peep, he set off into the wild and embraced the life of a "lost toy," leaving Buzz and their friends in the care of their new owner, a sweet girl named Bonnie.
As someone who was pretty mixed on Toy Story 4, I can't say I was looking forward to yet another sequel. Which just goes to show you should always keep an open mind: Toy Story 5 is a significant improvement and, at its best, a delight.
Things seem to be going well for Bonnie and her toys as the movie gets under way. But, of course, it's only a matter of time before a new phase of childhood begins, bringing with it a fresh threat to the toys' idyllic existence.
Bonnie's having trouble finding friends her age to play with, and that's because the other kids in her neighborhood are all glued to their screens. Nobody cares about toys anymore; it's all about digital tablets and other devices, with their games, group chats and virtual worlds. Sure enough, when her parents buy her a frog-themed tablet named Lilypad (aka "Lily"), Bonnie is immediately hooked.
The movie was directed and co-written by Andrew Stanton, who has mocked the perils of too much screen time before, in his 2008 Pixar classic, WALL-E. I suspect that Toy Story 5 will strike a chord with any parent who, like me, has ever yelled at their kids to get off the iPad and read a book. Ingeniously, the film takes one of the foundational ideas of the Toy Story universe — that inanimate objects can secretly think and move by themselves — and uses it to tap into our paranoia about what our devices might be doing when we're not looking.
Rest assured that this is still a Pixar movie, so there's a limit to just how dystopian things will get. Thankfully, Bonnie doesn't fall victim to an Internet stalker, though she does learn a valuable lesson about bullying and peer pressure. Lily, eager to boost Bonnie's social standing, connects her with some other girls online, and even starts sending texts and images without Bonnie's knowledge. At one point, Lily, pretending to be Bonnie, arranges for all her old toys to be boxed up and stored in the garage.
And so it's up to Jessie, the cowgirl rag doll who we first met in Toy Story 2, to save the day, with some help from Buzz and, eventually, Woody, happily cutting his retirement short. Bonnie's toys wind up at another kid's house in the area, where they meet a bunch of lower-tech devices, none funnier than Smarty Pants, an electronic toy designed to help kids with toilet training. He's voiced by Conan O'Brien, gamely spouting more potty jokes than you could find in the past four Toy Story movies combined.
It's here, though, that the story starts to go a little soft. After confronting the ways in which tech is taking over our lives, Toy Story 5 pulls back and suggests that devices and toys can coexist — and that devices themselves are no less susceptible to being neglected, forgotten and tossed aside for the fancy new models.
Maybe it's in the nature of Pixar movies to reassure us — to delve deeper into feelings of grief and impermanence than studio animated films typically do, but then offer us consolation in return. Toy Story 5 may look boldly forward, but it also peers lovingly backward. One funny subplot features an army of digitally souped-up Buzz Lightyear action figures — a callback to the sight gag in Toy Story 2, when Buzz encountered multiple versions of himself on a store shelf.
And although much has been made of the new Taylor Swift tune on the soundtrack, the most memorable musical bit here is a gentle refrain of Randy Newman's song "When She Loved Me," also from Toy Story 2, which told the heartbreaking story of Jessie's separation from Emily, her original owner. Stanton beautifully revisits and deepens that story here, reminding us that loss is a part of life, and that we are never truly forgotten by those we love.
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