A delight!

Rating: 10/10 (19 March 2005)

Kids have always wondered if their toys ever came to life when they were asleep and if the toys themselves had lives of their own by doing the same things that humans do.
Toy Story is the first film from Pixar Studios to make cartoons more humanistic with CGI than by drawing them out. Tom Hanks provides the voice of Woody the Cowboy, who is the ringleader of the toys around Andy's room. He overhears the important events around Andy's life and one of the things shocking is that they are moving to another home.
Most of Andy's toys are compiled of average boy toys: from a nervous dinosaur name Rex (Wallace Shawn) to a grumpy Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickels), a smart Aleck piggy bank called Hamm (John Ratzenburg); even Andy's little sister has toys that join with the gang, Bo Peep (Annie Potts of "Ghostbusters" fame) has a crush on the cowboy. There are other characters in the story; a dog on a string name Slinky Dog (Jim Varney of "Ernest" fame) and a plastic army doll name Sarge (R. Lee Ermey of Full Metal Jacket).
One of the elements of "Toy Story" is very psychological, and that is the fear of a new toy. Sure everybody likes to get a new toy, but the problem is that when people buy new toys, they automatically forget that their old toys exist and lose excitement within them. When Andy's birthday party comes a week before the leave, Woody sends Sarge and the plastic army men with the baby talkers to hear what kind of presents Andy has gotten this year. As Mr. Potato jokes that he wants a wife, the gang gets cut off by a nervous Rex and realize that the toys have to stay still.
The new toy in Andy's life is the popular and all out, Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen) in which he pushes Woody to the side leaving the new toy on the bed. Everybody clamors over Woody being pushed off the bed as every other toy in the room tries to figure out what's up there.
Woody is introduced to the new character as he tells everyone he can fly and fire a high laser. A smart-ass Potato Head makes a statement about Woody's voice box that it sounds a car ran over it. Days before the move, Woody is left out of the group as everybody including Bo Peep are all with Buzz Lightyear.
Woody has a plan of getting rid of Buzz and he uses an electric race-car to push him out the window. Now every toy is against Woody and want to beat him up; but Andy saves Woody when him and the rest of his family are going out for pizza and can't find Buzz, so Andy takes the cowboy instead. With little relief, when the car stops at a gas station, Buzz has been hiding under the car and fights with Woody outside; suddenly the car leaves with both toys stranded.
Buzz has a plan for both him and Woody to get back with Andy; they get into a pizza truck and try to find Andy and his family and notices that the neighborhood bully Sid is there so the toys hide in a toy machine where they are taken with another toy back to Sid's house where one toy is torture to death (relax, its not the main toys). So now they have to work together in order to be with Andy and tell the other toys that everything is all right.
"Toy Story" is a blessing with delight and wonder and just like my review of "Monsters, Inc." it's a movie of curiosity and a joy to behold.