With all the charm, energy, and character investment of the first and more humor and complex plot, Toy Story 2 actually builds off the original successfully

Rating: 8/10 (24 June 2019)

I had heard that Toy Story 2 was the weakest of the series, so after being pleasantly surprised by the first, I was ready for a forgettable sequel. Instead, Toy Story 2 brought both more emotional stakes and humor throughout. The humor is the thing that really stood out (Hamm saying "You heard of kung fu? Well get ready for pork chop!" is absolutely hilarious), and was a mix of child and adult targets for the jokes that worked well. The end credits bloopers jokes, the adorable alien men, the Star Wars reference, and countless great lines all worked perfectly for me. In addition, the scene with Jessie's backstory was a heart wrenching adolescent development story that made us love Jessie in the span of a couple minutes. The plot twist with the prospector was a solid and legitimate one, and all the characters had their distinct personalities and humors as in the first. The ending had a bit more suspension of disbelief and wild turns of events (speaking of suspension of disbelief, it seems crazy how valuable Woody is - if he was such a big phenomenon, how are there not more of him available?), but it was still easy to not worry about it overmuch and get carried away wtih Buzz, Woody, and Jessie's energy. Far from a letdown, Toy Story 2 is very effective and funny and dare I say just slightly better than the first, even if the ending is just passable.