Toy Story 2: Everything You Could Want

Rating: 7/10 (9 July 2010)

Following on from the success of its predecessor, Toy Story 2 launched Pixar even further into the animation stratospere. It was only whilst deciding to watch this and the original in preparation for the upcoming third installment that I realised I had never, not even as a child, seen this before. Struggling to understand how, I rushed to right this wrong.
Picking up a few years after the first left us off, Andy's toys live a happy coexistence with his new puppy. When a less functional member of their tribe is taken to the yard sale taking place at the front of the house, Woody mounts his canine steed in a rescue mission. Identified as a rare collector's item by a snooping customer, he is stolen, to be shipped to a museum in Japan. Cue the Buzz led rescue mission, and another miniature adventure.
This one starts strongly, giving us action on a gargantuan scale before pulling back and revealing it to be a game played by Rex: a perfect reintroduction to the characters' world and the start of a recurring joke. We soon meet the puppy, the bark of whom closed the last installment, and see how he has been embraced as a member of the animated family. Things continue in much the same manner as the original, the style of humour all but identical, perhaps a bit more mature, as indeed was its target audience by its release. The same tone too is to be seen here, Woody's early setbacks much akin to his first despairing thoughts of abandonment upon Buzz's arrival. Once the primary plot gets rolling, we get the mix of action, adventure, comedy, and drama of the first all over again, with a whole host of new characters and settings. Particularly amusing and entertaining are the interactions of Buzz and the newer model of himself he finds, his role now reversed to that of Woody at the beginning of the first film in convincing the deluded toy that he is just that. Woody's story is marked by a nicely darker element of being someone's toy, and one which will undoubtedly resonate thematically with installment three. The last half hour or so is full-on action, suspenseful stuff which has everyone rooting for the heroes. Everything you could want for what it is really. Again, this provides a sufficiently compelling kids' film, but one which lack the emotional wow factor of such greats as Wall-E.
Again, Pixar delivers a consistently entertaining movie which will doubtlessly fulfill the cinematic needs of all the kids who see it. Regarding its alleged increase in quality over its forbear, I tend to disagree, though it is very close. Having never seen it until recently, I guess this one just doesn't have the same sentimental legacy for me.