A Fitting End to A Great Trilogy

Rating: 8/10 (19 June 2010)

PIXAR: Hits – 11. Failures – O I'm not sure how long Pixar can keep up this amazing tightrope walk of great films; but, for now, it's all good.
In 1995, we were introduced to a boy named Andy and his toys, including cowboy, Woody and Space Ranger, Buzz Lightyear. Now it's fifteen years after the first film – although in the film world, it's closer to ten. Andy is seventeen years old now; and although he will soon be off to college, and is too old to play with toys, he still keeps a motley crew of his childhood possessions in the old toy trunk in his room. The paired down group of toys consist of Woody, Buzz, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, piggy-bank Hamm, Slinky-Dog (Blake Clark flawlessly filling in for the late Jim Varney), cowgirl Jessie, Bulls-Eye the horse, Rex the dinosaur, and three of those Pizza Planet aliens that worship the claaaaawwww.
It's a time of sadness for Andy's toys. Woody and the gang keep trying in vain to get Andy to play with them. And at one point (sniff) it dawns on us that Woody has lost the love of his life, Little Bo Peep long ago, possibly in some garage-sale.
Then things take a turn for the worse when Andy has to decide whether to either throw his toys in the garbage, move them up to the attic, or donate them to a day-care centre. Andy decides to take Woody with him to college and move the rest of the toys up to the attic. However, the toys, minus Woody, decide they would rather be played with in day-care then to stay cooped up in the attic. So, they manage to get themselves packed away in the donation box in Andy's Mom's car – it's a long story; but trust me, they get there.
As Woody breaks free of Andy's luggage and tries to explain to his toy-friends the importance of their loyalty to Andy, he ends up getting shipped off to day-care too.
No sooner do they arrive at day-care, then Woody breaks ranks and tries to make his way back to Andy. Along the way, he winds up in the possession of a little girl and it's there that he learns that his toy friends, rather than being played with by a bunch of five to eight year olds like they used to with Andy, they are being trampled upon, chewed on, and suffer all types of abuse by a room full of toddlers. Worst of all, Andy's toys can't escape because, after hours, the day-care becomes a rainbow-coloured gulag run by the furry pink, strawberry-scented ruler named Lots O' Hugs (Lightning Crash!) Now, Woody is on a mission to save his friends in an elaborate prison break to get back to Andy's house.
Toy Story 3, is the funniest Pixar movie I have seen in a while. And what I like about the humour in Pixar movies as opposed to the humour in Dreamwork's "Shrek" or "Madagascar" movies is that Pixar doesn't try to make people laugh by specifically referencing movies like "The Matrix" in "Shrek" or "Planet of the Apes" in "Madagascar". Much of the humour comes from parodying the conventions of the prison-break sub-genre rather than specific films themselves: although, "Toy Story 3″ alludes to movies like "The Great Escape", we never once hear that film's catchy theme song, nor do we see Buzz Lightyear bouncing a ball repeatedly off a wall and catching it. We do, however have a Fisher-Price phone that has been in the day-care for decades, and knows the ins and outs on how to stay alive on the inside. I suspect Pixar movies will have a longer shelf-life than many of it's Dreamworks counterparts; not just because they are better films, overall; but because they are not concerned with being hip and current the way Dreamworks tends to be.
I have heard some reviewers say this film is darker and scarier than it's predecessors; but I don't think anything in this film is any darker than Sid's room of toy-torture from the first film. So if your child was okay with that, they should be fine with this.
And although, I wouldn't say this film is quite as good as the previous two, it's very exciting, humorous, the characters are as endearing as ever; and the thing ends on a very touching final note that makes you hope they don't muck it up with a fourth entry.
On a final note This is the second film from Pixar, after "Up", to be made in 3D. However, just like the previous film, I don't think this needs to be seen in 3D – in fact, the 3D is less necessary here than it was in "Up" since that film had the added bonus of some very nice aerial effects. There's nothing gimmicky about the 3D effects in Pixar's movies; and at some points, with this film, I even forgot that I was even watching it in 3D.