Beyond infinity!

Rating: 9/10 (23 April 2005)

These days, every film Pixar makes is hailed as a masterpiece, based on the winning formula of sophisticated computer animation and lots of jokes that parents can get as well. But many of these films could have been made using conventional techniques, and although the jokes may be sly, the basic premise of the plot is frequently dull and familiar: heroic, cute outsider wins the day and gets the girl. In my books, more recent efforts fail to truly match the original 'Toy Story'. The uniqueness of 'Toy Story' is based on two things. Firstly, that the plot depends on switching between two levels of reality (the toys, who are the leading characters, lie passive as their owner plays with them but (just as we all liked to imagine they did) play among themselves when the children aren't around). Being able to assimilate this fantasy world within a real-looking environment is this central to the film. And secondly, mapped to an adult domain, the subject matter of 'Toy Story' is actually desperately bleak: what we have is an allegory for human obsolescence and death, and the delusional strategies we employ to hide from this unbearable truth. One feels for these toys, even though they win out in both of the two movies, because we know that in the end, there is only the promise of inevitable defeat.
'Toy Story 2' isn't quite as fresh as the mould-breaking original, but the scriptwriters have done a good job of taking its ideas forward, adding new levels of self-awareness (and self-referencing) to the plot. The jokes are good, the morbid streak remains, the only down-side is that we now expect all our animations to look this good. Together with its predecessor, it probably represents the most subversive film Disney have ever made, and a movie even Uncle Scrooge will enjoy.