Toy Story 3 is not the breakout animated film of the year...

Rating: 6/10 (17 October 2010)

How To Train Your Dragon is. I'll make it simple, as mystifying as my words may read. Toy Story was a good movie; not because it was original - The Brave Little Toaster has the honor of that. No, and not just because it's characters are memorable and the movie is entertaining, which are all true. But what is so special about Toy Story is that it is the first movie ever to be made entirely of CGI. It worked wonders with toys... not so much with human beings. Buzz and Woody's friendship is touching and their subplots through out the movie to return to Andy are inspiring. Good work Pixar, original - no. Worth the watch - definitely!
Toy Story 2 changes things up the second time out. The characters are all memorable - Jessie in particular has that tear - inspiring moment - and it's all good and entertaining like before. Continuing with Buzz and Woody's friendship is Buzz 'to the rescue' of his friend when he becomes disllusioned with himself and his true toy heritage (a lovely 50's homage with Sputnik thrown in for good measure; though done quite a bit better in The Iron Giant which was also released that year; 1999) and it all still carries the Pixar CGI to new levels.
Toy Story 3. It's been not ten years but eleven years. Andy's a bore, his dog's a snore and the toys have a reason to deplore. It's exactly like Spiderman 3. Good ideas but just no proper pacing. Woody and Buzz - who saw each other for short intervals in TS2 - have maybe two moments together and their unlikely teamwork was the birth of beauty that gave lift to TS1 and helped elevate TS2 up enough so that it didn't plummet. What could have been an emotional turn for one of the best scenes in animation was abruptly cut short... because the kiss up aliens had to 'save the day' and what was a sweet gesture at the end where Andy gives his toys away turns into an awkward play session.
No more, Pixar. No more.