Review: TOY STORY 5

 by Rob DiCristino

It’s toys vs. tech.

In last week’s review, I remarked that one of the most powerful things about Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day is its unwavering belief in the human family. It’s a belief born not from naivety — contrary to what many of Spielberg’s most insufferable detractors would argue — but from experience. Cynicism is a lame excuse. A quick escape. It’s fleeting and immature. It’s easy to say that everything is fucked and that everyone is terrible. It takes nothing to believe in nothing. It’s a lot more difficult to look around at how bad things have gotten and actually argue that they can be good again. That there’s hope. Hope, after all, is like the sun: If you only believe in it when you see it, then you’ll never make it through the night. Why am I blathering on about hope and family (not to mention quoting Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which on its own is enough for some of you to close this browser window)? Because Andrew Stanton’s Toy Story 5 is another argument for the power of genuine human connection, another argument for unity in the face of all that conspires to separate us.

While all the other eight-year-olds in the neighborhood — who am I kidding? All the other people in the neighborhood — spend hours bent over smartphones, tablets, and computer monitors, our young friend Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) is still imagineering globetrotting adventures with the help of her trusty toys. But for as much as Buzz (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), and the others love the attention, they have to admit that Bonnie’s affinity for solo play is starting to affect her social life. Hoping to help her make friends, Bonnie’s parents purchase Lilypad (Greta Lee), a chipper learning tablet who immediately sets about turning her new charge into a screen-tapping, group-chatting child of the future. Jessie, terrified of losing Bonnie the way she lost so many other kids, recruits her old partner, Woody (Tom Hanks), and hatches a plan to eliminate Lilypad before they’re all relegated to the trash heap. Meanwhile, a group of new, wifi-enabled Buzz Lightyears escapes a crashed shipping container and searches for a way to return to Star Command headquarters.

Written and co-directed by Stanton and storyboard artist Kenna Harris, Toy Story 5 presents the beloved characters from Pixar’s most celebrated franchise with a timely new adversary: Technology. Nearly every human character in the film is utterly consumed by their devices, and some of the best jokes play on their subsequent ignorance to the Conspicuous Sentient Plaything Shenanigans (which are even more conspicuous than usual) happening around them. Even a creative wunderkind like Bonnie is quickly sucked in, abandoning Jessie and the gang after a single invitation to a dance class sleepover. Woody — who’s been living the free toy lifestyle with Bo Peep (Annie Potts) and Duke Kaboom (Keanu Reeves) — confirms that screen zombies are popping up everywhere, and when Bonnie becomes the victim of some brutal group chat bullying, Jessie resolves to find her a real-world friend worthy of her kindness and imagination. Her best bet? Blaze Manoukian (Mykal-Michelle Harris), a precocious animal lover who lives on a nearby farm.

And while Toy Story 5 takes all the predictable shots at our 5G touchscreen fuckosphere, it’s far less interested in demonizing technology out of hand than it is in advocating for the ineffable power of playtime. It’s not that Lilypad is evil — she says she’s simply trying to help Bonnie reach age-appropriate developmental benchmarks, which is both totally true and totally gross — it’s that there’s a huge difference between playing “next to” your friends and playing “with” them. Why go to a sleepover if you’re just going to stare at separate tablets? Why have friends at all if they only exist as bubbles of text on a screen? At its core, Toy Story 5 is about the headstrong Jessie — this is a Jessie movie, by the way; Woody and Buzz are totally incidental — learning to accept that tech toys like Atlas (Craig Robinson), Snappy (Shelby Rabara), and Mr. Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien) not only have something to offer kids like Bonnie and Blaze, but that they also have a right to experience the true joy of imaginative play. We are all part of the same family, after all. We all have value and worth.

As for everything else? Well, it’s another Toy Story movie! Our friends are back and up to their usual tricks. There are some fun bits and some sweet moments. Jessie has some more abandonment baggage to unpack. There are a few good jokes about Woody’s age — you’ve probably seen the “bald spot” thing in the trailer, but there’s also a charming runner about him trying to reinvent his look with a poncho — and a cute conclusion to the Buzz/Jessie love story. There’s also a C+ Taylor Swift song and a completely superfluous B plot about that army of Buzz Lightyears I mentioned — notice how I haven’t brought them up again until now? — that exists only to facilitate a third act action sequence that could have been handled a thousand other ways. It’s a little messy! But it’s also smart, endearing, and worthy of its place in a series that continues to evolve in unexpected ways. There probably shouldn’t be a Toy Story 5, but as long as the batting average stays this high, it’s hard to argue that Woody and his friends shouldn’t keep playtime alive and kicking forever.

Toy Story 5 hits U.S. theaters on Friday, June 19th.