few trilogies can be considered whole and complete, but this is now one of them

Rating: 10/10 (18 June 2010)

Toy Story 3 brings back nostalgia, but that's to be expected. We all think back to fifteen years ago, or eleven years ago, when the Toy Story movies came out the first time. If you're too young for that, then at least the re-release was last year to catch people up, though it's not quite the same thing. As Andy is off to college- as was predicted would happen as a given in Toy Story 2- we in the audience realize that this third film follows a kind of time-line that runs with our lives. Even if you're an adult (i.e. older than my 20-something age) you can relate to what the toys and Andy are going through. What happens at the end of the film, the resolution of the ultimate conflict of what to do with the toys as life goes on, is one of the most beautiful and heartwarmingly bittersweet (well, more like sad-sweet) moments in recent cinema. Pixar tends to do that.
This is the kind of third movie that makes it a trilogy- it's hard to see it going on to a fourth film and having any kind of the same resonance- and one that seems perfectly fit together in terms of a progressing story. But where something like Star Wars saw the second film as the darkest and third one coming into (somewhat) lighter terms, this is not quite the same with Pixar's baby. Toy Story 3, with it becoming a prison movie in more than just a sense (the toys get sent to Sunnyside Daycare, run by a cute-looking but ruthless bear voiced by Ned Beatty), and what happens in said prison. To be sure, other cute things abound in the movie, from Peas-in-a-Pod to (yes) Totoro from Miyazaki's movie. But in that prison, and other things that happen such as the trip to the junkyard/landfill, it gets dark.
And yet, Pixar continues their outstanding method of storytelling and entertainment: nothing is even scaled-down for kids, and nothing is too sappy for adults. A couple of obvious song choices aside- 'Dream Weaver' for when Ken and Barbie first meet, and 'Freak Out' as Ken hilariously tries on a wardrobe- there's nothing that doesn't work for kids and adults, equally, and often more-so for adults than kids (I wonder, for example, when Buzz is reset and becomes El Buzzo and speaks Spanish if the wee little ones will be able to read the subtitles). When it's funny the humor is aimed at sophisticated one-liners and, yes, sophisticated (or just well-timed) slapstick, when there's action it's intense just as in the previous Toy Stories, and when it's heartbreaking it'll make everyone in the audience cry. I wonder if Pixar has some kind of magic movie-voodoo to get the old adage to come alive: you'll laugh, you'll cry- and sometimes in the same breath!
The new toys are great additions, but they never detract from the classic cast. And even with them, and the great dynamic of the daycare center and its prison atmosphere, we never get lost in the shuffle of toy conflicts and desires and dreams halted (Lotso's backstory is like a twisted version of Jessie's story from Toy Story 2). It would also be a given to say that the animation keeps getting better, a little higher quality in stylization and panache, but the animators and filmmakers also aim higher in a number of ways. The opening of the film, with its grand depiction of what's going on inside of Andy's mind as he plays with his toys, an Old West-Sci/fi hybrid complete with a train full of troll orphans and Hamm as a giant flying pig-spaceship-weapon, is so epic as to seem like it's out of a much bigger Summer Action Blockbuster than it should be. Or rather, Toy Story IS this summer's big Blockbuster, and it's epic enough to be qualified as a kind of mini-masterpiece - that is, until the rest of the film unfolds.
At the least, Buzz dancing to Spanish Salsa music, and that end of the movie, make it one of the high points of Pixar's career - and this is following WALL-E and Up!