Heartfelt Swan Song to Andy's Toys!

Rating: 10/10 (19 March 2015)

From the ever-reliable purveyors of digital charm at Pixar, Toy Story 3 is a bona-fide summer delight loaded with action, humor, nostalgia, a veritable blizzard of pop-culture references and general good vibes. It is injected with humour and powered by fun as the adventures of Woody, Buzz and Co brings these toys together in ways that will entertain and move you.
Andy is all grown up and about to drive off to college. His mom meanwhile wants his room cleared, leaving the fate of his toys uncertain. Fears of the unknown, of neglect and abuse, are gradually eclipsed by the threat of disposal. The whole gang gets caught in an odyssey of compounded indignities and the misunderstanding consigns the toys to Sunnyside Daycare, presented as a heavenly vision of constant, collective ownership and communal living. Alas, their utopia turns out to be a veritable penal colony, presided over by a tyrannical pink huggybear called Lotso (who makes a terrifically malignant bad guy) and his two henchmen, a bumbling lazy-eyed baby doll and Barbie's swishy soul mate Ken. It is here that our latest adventure begins.
This time around, we get to see it all as the characters experience true peril (don't miss the brilliantly choreographed garbage dump incinerator scene), exciting adventure, genuine emotion, and the importance of love in one's life. What the film does so beautifully is to twist the existential crisis of a toy into a reckoning of our younger selves. It understands how we attach fond significance to those things that have been mute companions and witnesses through the years, and have measured our lost time. It is a poignancy that gathers such force by the end that your eyes, already moistened around the edges, will start teeming helplessly.
Toy Story 3 hits every button from laughter to tears and lifts you up on waves of visual bedazzlement. Unflinchingly honest and genuinely moving, Toy Story 3 is a marvel, an absolute touchstone in movie history. Tag it as one of Pixar's best!