Falling with Style

Rating: Null/10 (17 February 2017)

In a world in which toys talk and move whenever humans are not looking, a cowboy doll experiences jealousy for the very first time after an action figure replaces him as his owner's favourite toy in this popular animated comedy. The premise lends itself to a number of perplexing unanswered questions (in particular, regarding the 'rules' that the toys follow to freeze as soon as there is the possibility of a human seeing them move) but if one accepts the basic notion and runs with it, the film offers a surprisingly compelling story with striking personal identity themes as both of the main toys come to realise that they are not as special as they once thought. For Woody, it comes with realising that his owner can have other favourite toys and for Buzz it comes from awakening to the fact that he actually is a toy and not the famous space commander that he is designed as being. The film is blessed by excellent animation effects too; while many entirely computer generated animated films have come out in the years since, few have used the process quite so delightfully with lots of mobile tracking and panning shots that would have been near impossible to get right in a live action feature. The changing facial reactions on the toys (especially Woody) are impressive too - even if the fact that the toys in the film look more realistic than the humans in the film never quite feels right. This is, of course, a film about the toys though, and fanciful as the premise may well be, there is a lot to like about their loyalty both towards their owners and each other.