Entertaining, but not as good as Toy Story 1 & 2

Rating: 6/10 (9 August 2010)

I was looking forward to seeing Toy Story 3 since I enjoyed Toy Story 1 & 2 so much. The question remains whether Toy Story 3 measures up to its predecessors. All the main characters are back including Woody and Buzz Lightyear and the Pixar animation, with its attention to extreme detail, is even better. It was a good idea not to bring back all the toys from the previous features and dispensing with the toy soldiers (for example), by having them 'bail out', which was quite clever.
The plot begins in the present, with the toy's owner, Andy, now about to go away to college. He packs up his toys (excluding Woody who he intends to take with him to college) and puts them in a bag, about to bring them upstairs to the attic for storage. Somehow he gets distracted and his mother mistakenly throws the bag with the toys out in the trash. The toys manage to escape from the bag but jump into a box marked for the Sunnyside Day Care Center. Woody manages to follow the toys to the day care center and insists they should all return to Andy before he goes away to college. The toys, however, don't relish the idea of being no use up in the attic and stage a mutiny. Woody leaves his colleagues, only to end up in the home of Bonnie, a young child, who has some neat, new toys including a Shakespearean hedgehog, Mr. Pricklepants, and a scatterbrained triceratops, Trixie.
Unlike Toy Story 1 & 2, which featured human antagonists (the vicious child 'Sid' in "1" and Al McWhiggin, the conniving toy store owner in "2"), Toy Story 3's antagonist is Lotso, a bear with a chip on his shoulder. It seems that Lotso was lost by his previous owner, a child named Daisy, who replaced him with a similar looking model. Somehow the idea that the innocent toy world can be corrupted by an evil seed within its own ranks isn't as effective as having human antagonists. That's because I think it's better to depict the toys as essentially representing the innocent and positive world of childhood with the negative force derived from the worst aspects of adulthood. In Toy Story 1, Sid is a child, obviously conditioned to be a 'monster' by his parents; and in Toy Story 2, Al the toy store owner, embodies the sin of avarice, which must be opposed through the 'goodness' of Andy's toys. In a sense, 'toydom' is diminished by pitting toy against toy and the point that adults are responsible for causing the problems of childhood, is lost.
The other problem I found with the plot is that Andys' toys' reaction to Lotso's directives was unfounded. You'll recall that Andys' toys claim that being placed with the 'younger children' is inappropriate; but as toys, they should expect to be thrown around by younger children (isn't that what younger children do with toys?). And was Lotso being so unfair when he demands that the new toys be placed with the younger one's first, since they're "first in line"? Notice at the end of the film, when 'fairness' is supposedly restored, Ken and Barbie are now running the day care center, now allowing all the toys to take turns, interacting with the younger and more disruptive children. Note that the toys will still be subjected to being thrown around by the younger children—simply less often.
Still, Toy Story 3 is filled with thrilling scenes, reminiscent of its predecessors. After Andy's toys attempt to escape from the day care center, we're taken on a wild ride inside a trash compactor. The toys face their 'dark moment of the soul' as they're about to be burnt alive in an incinerator; after Lotso fails to save them by pushing the compactor's stop button, they're miraculously saved by squeeze toy aliens who somehow manage to stop all power by operating the controls in the control room.
There are other neat scenes in Toy Story 3 including Buzz turning into a Lothario after accidentally being set on 'Spanish mode', Barbie and Ken falling in, then out of love and back in love again, Ken's hilarious wardrobe display and the fantastic introductory sequence featuring a wild chase involving both a train and a spaceship.
For those who haven't seen Toy Story 1 & 2, Toy Story 3 might seem like a masterpiece. But for those who have seen the two earlier incarnations, one can only conclude that "3" just isn't quite as good. "3" does get marks for trying however. The theme that one cannot hold on to the past is ably embodied in Woody's resistance to leaving Andy and finally accepting, along with the rest of Andy's toys, the idea that it's time to move on. On the other hand, it's sad to see Lotso, pinned to the front of a garbage truck, with the implication that he may be the victim of his new owner, who might be some kind of sadist or pervert. The image of an innocent child's toy, made to represent some demonic force, is all wrong and sadly makes Story 3 inappropriate for younger viewers.