Mesmerising and delightfully pitched second sequel, with an astute focus on both absorbing adventure and observant tragedy combining to produce something special.

Rating: 8/10 (12 January 2011)

Apart from being a cracking slice of entertainment, rich in its sense of adventure, more than competent in its ability to tell a narrative and packed with both genuinely funny and genuinely comedic moments; Lee Unkrich and the team at Disney Pixar's Toy Story 3 is a heartfelt and powerful piece; a film with the perpetual ability to be able to assuredly tap into some pretty raw human emotions and in the most engaging of fashions. Its universal achievement is its study of loss and post-script look at the fact that life does indeed go on after whatever tragedy might have previously befallen you. Here is the third film in a franchise which has stuck to its guns; providing more than mere blunt nostalgia and petty summer frills to an array of fans young enough to remember the first one as a wondrous animated adventure film, by effectively branching out in its overall study of something substantial; simultaneously refraining to pander to new generations of youngsters out for shrill entertainment in a CG animated form. The film is one very much for those whom have grown up with the characters and in-jokes; twelve year old newcomers out for the latest in commodity infused sequel shenanigans whom are not familiar with the other two need not apply.
Lee Unkrich, the latest in a bevy of directors from Pixar to have come of age and take the reigns, does a stupendous job; delivering the goods on several fronts in what is a wondrous animation. The moment in the series we were all told to wake up and realise that the makers behind this fantastic franchise had plans of a much more grandeur nature than first perceived occurs in the first sequel of 1999; such a film shedding its initial direct to DVD approaches to pose the question as to what will happen to Tom Hanks' Woody and the gang of toys whose adventures we adore to follow when Andy, their-then child owner, grows up; goes to college and even ventures off on his honeymoon. Therein was the moment, following a pretty harrowing sequence about a discarded toy with her own back-story, during which the franchise appeared to come of age and that some pretty serious, even philosophical, ideas revolving around what it is to exist as a toy and what one's purpose in existing is when the child owner outgrows you, are posed.
Toy Story 3 is the arriving at this point in that a 17 year old Andy, who's voiced by the original John Morris from the other two, is packing up and leaving for college; only, his room is being cleared out and certain items may or may not make the journey. "Skateboard: college; little-league trophies: attic, apple-core: trash" states his mother in a ruthlessly blunt and cut-throat manner highlighting the frank and obtuse reality of the situation the toys face. After some brief deliberation, they realise they'd settle for the attic – at least they've all got the Christmas decoration toys up there for company. But it is a mix up with certain bags containing certain items which are destined for certain places which acts as the film's catalyst for all things both joyous and tragic to unfold; Andy's toys of old in the form of Tim Allen's Buzz Lightyear and Joan Cusack's Jessie the Cowgirl along with Mr. Potato Head (Rickles); Hamm (Ratzenberger) and Slinky Dog (Clark, after Varney's passing) eventually seeing fit to deliver themselves to a local nursery so that they may be played with over and over by the tots. It is Woody and Woody alone whom knows they were never initially destined for the garbage.
What is captured and not shied away from at all is the apparent descent toward the inevitable; the film's sense of impending doom touched upon throughout, not least during the opening skit in which Woody's train-within-a-game goes over the edge of a destroyed bridge and we think the worst has happened, whereas, after this, the loss of fellow toys from previous films is touched upon instilling a sense of grief amidst proceedings. One scene early on out in the street sees the crushing of several trash bags in the back of a garbage truck, one of which we're initially led to believe contains Andy's toys, in what is another instance upon which the shocking inevitable has seemingly occurred and what the toys have striven to avoid all this time has become a harrowing reality.
The arriving at the day-care nursery simultaneously opens up several tins of several different kinds of worms; at once welcoming and perceived as a Utopian place for all toys to be continuously played with over and over, things quickly descend into a nightmarish Hell-like scenario in which totalitarian rule runs the show. What is refreshing is that in order to get away from the day-care centre, the film must call upon times of old in having the toys work as a group in order to figure out the best course of action; the joy being in the process they go through to help turn the tide back into their favour once again. Ned Beatty lends his hand at voicing the chief antagonist in large, purple, initially friendly soft toy bear Lotso who's anything other than your more one dimensional villain bent on nastiness but, in actual fact, is granted a back-story involving experiences upon which he bases both his stance and ideologies. The film finds that perfect pitch between happy and sad; a bittersweet tale, around which characters we've come to adorn, strive to avoid suffering only to face a a not-so-bright light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. It is a remarkable and gorgeously effective piece on a plateau with some of the best in animated films from recent years.