Toys Live

Rating: Null/10 (19 December 1999)

John Lasseter directed the original Toy Story as well as the entertaining A Bug's Life. Toy Story 2 is the best of a very good bunch!
These animated films are definitely not just for children. Even if you're never too old to be immature, Toy Story 2 travels well in adult company. It's full of universal themes. We all after all fear rejection.
Woody is a cowboy doll who's arm gets damaged and then there's disaster - his young master Andy doesn't take him to the annual cowboy camp!
Heartbroken Woody has to face some very difficult home truths. Apart from the fact that he's only ever been played with when Andy felt like it, it's inescapable that Andy will eventually grow up and discard him. He'll be chucked into the bin, thrown away. And he really loves Andy.
Or he'll be sold off in a garage sale.
This fate awaits all of Andy's toys, and one of them does get put onto the driveway to be sold. Woody goes to the rescue and so begins the main part of the Toy Story 2 adventure.
There's also the piquancy of the moments when the toys hear a human coming when they've been getting about on their toy business.
They have to scramble to get back into their previous positions so they're not caught out, often flinging themselves into an ungainly heap, looking half broken in a pile.
You're meant to feel sorry for these sweet, uncomplicated beings, and it works. If our toys were really alive as we imagined them to be, how would they feel when we dump them?
Remember that teddy bear you kept for years as a treasured friend? Where's Teddy now?
But all this adds to nothing unless we are treated to superb film making. The best intentions of artists often amount to absolutely nothing, or more often, the mediocre.
In fact the film craft of Lasseter's film crew is getting even better. The original Toy Story didn't really hit the mark, it waned a fair bit after the first hour. But this one keeps its power until its conclusion. Good films require all of their elements to fire.
The voicings are terrific, particularly from Tom Hanks as Woody, but a film with a script as vibrant as this one must be a dream for actors.
Animation has come a long way as well. Toy Story 1 was remarkable because of its totally digital environment. Never before had the backgrounds been completely computer drawn and they looked great. However the film lacked enough complex (adult) ideas to maintain interest until the end.
But bells and whistles do not a good film make. In fact in Toy Story 2 the filming process, this wonderful computer wizardry, almost always recedes to be unnoticed, and that's utterly remarkable.
But when it's most important, the digital magic in Toy Story 2 is becomes vibrant. This is when the subtleties of expression on the faces of Woody and his toy mates just couldn't have been bettered with a real human face!
And even more so when you start questioning the validity of a supposedly human face in the film and realise later on that it really is only computer generated. We're not that far from having indistinguishable, digital human characters on film.
So Toy Story 2 is funny and rather sad. It's a valid and fun exploration of the human condition.