A lovely, lovely film

Rating: 8/10 (19 June 2010)

Toy Story 3 (1:42, G, Imax, 3-D) — Fantasy: Fairy Tales, biggie, sequel
"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." (1 Corinthians 13:11)
But did the childish things want to be put away? That's the question at the heart of Toy Story 3, in which Sheriff Woody (Tom Hanks), space ranger Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack), and the rest of the toy menagerie face an uncertain fate after years of being neglected while Andy (John Morris) went thru adolescence and graduated from high school. Now he's preparing to head off to college, and mom (Laurie Metcalf) has come up with her own form of triage: take the toys to college, store them in the attic, or dump 'em in a trash bag for disposal.
There's been a change in the cast of characters since last time. Bo Peep is gone (and we guess from a fleeting expression on Woody's face that there's an untold story there), but Andy's little sister has contributed her Barbie (Jodi Benson, whom I sure hope you all remember as the voice of The Little Mermaid) to the collection that Andy has, reluctantly, decided to donate to the Sunnyside Day Care Center. (The only one he's keeping is his old pal Woody, and this causes some conflicting emotions among the toys.)
There are already a lot of toys at Sunnyside, and they're all under the sway of Lotso (Ned Beatty), short for Lots o'Hugging Bear, a big, pink, furry, strawberry-scented mass of folksy joviality and (it turns out) cynicism. Lotso welcomes the newbies, but they soon discover that it's because he needs cannon fodder for the Caterpillar Room, where the manic toddlers abuse them horribly, so that he and his favored minions can remain safely in the Butterfly Room, where they're treated kindly by the slightly older kids. (The filmmakers at Pixar researched toy treatment at real day-care centers to provide verisimilitude to these scenes.) At night, when the humans are gone, Lotso and his enforcers — Big Baby, Ken, sparkly purple octopus, and the grinning monkey with the cymbals — turn the school into a literal prison, complete with guard towers, spotlights, and roving spotter vehicles.
After a series of misunderstandings and mishaps, Woody has reconnected with his old pals, and they determine to re-enact The Great Escape before they're all ripped to shreds. As always, the main reason a movie goes into detail over a plan of any kind is so you can see where it went wrong when it inevitably does.
I will say no more about the plot other than that there's lots of it, it's all consistent (given the initial premise), and it all works well. While there are some scary moments in the movie, and a few sad ones as well, it deserves its G rating as completely suitable for small children. The dominant feelings you're left with are positive. Loyalty is rewarded; friendship is celebrated; there are lots of laffs, chuckles, and grins; it has a splendid voice cast; the 25th most important character in the movie is as exquisitely rendered as the main ones; and it is a visually sumptuous delight from beginning to end. (I was particularly fond of the cameo appearance by a stuffed Totoro doll in a non-speaking role, a hat-tip to Hiyao Miyazaki from the creative team at Pixar, who are better qualified than anyone else on Earth to know animation genius when they see it.)
I saw Toy Story 3 in Imax and 3-D, because as a movie junkie I crave the most immersive movie-going experience I can get. Both were effective, neither was essential.
I gave Toy Story 2 a 9 (my highest rating), because it contained a couple of scenes that left me so choked up I literally couldn't speak, and that's the mark of a job done to near perfection. Toy Story 3 falls just a skosh short of that standard, but it left me both misty- eyed and smiling. A worthy conclusion to the trilogy. A dandy film. For my money, the best SF&F movie of 2010 so far.