"You would not believe the day I am having!" How to make a successful trilogy

Rating: 9/10 (30 July 2010)

The toys numbers are few. They are stored in a box, and there's little for them to do in there except go stir crazy as Andy grows up and heads for college, BUT, he has to sort out his room and his old toys, so what's his plan ...To put his best loved in the attack but take his best friend to college as a token of the youth he has now left behind, but who will go, Woody or Buzz, after deciding on Woody, he gets ready to put them in the attic, but things don't go to plan and the toys including Buzz are instead donated to a nursery, a place which looks like Paradise but is in fact no better than the boy next door's backyard. Will the toys escape from Sunnyside Prison nursery, will Woody get to go to college, will this film feel simply like a cashing-in add-on?
When I heard the plot initially I had to say yes to the final question, I mean Andy giving his prized toy away, I mean everyone has a special toy who they love the most, right? And there lies the magic, Pixar don't do contradictions like that in there films, and in this one they stay absolutely loyal to everything that has gone before. The film is exciting, funny, terrifying and charming from one second to the next. Lotso the bear, the leader of the nursery toys is one of the most terrifying villains created by Pixar, precisely because he appears so cute and cuddly, and while children won't register it, I personally found the scene where Buzz was, effectively tortured to be very upsetting, but that's because we love these characters so much. The animation is as usual first rate and you know off the bat immediately that you're watching a Pixar film, the voice work, particularly by Hanks is stunning and with him and Tim Allen you get the feeling that they know these characters so well, it makes it that much more real, sucking all of us into this completely make believe world. The direction is top-drawer and well ...well I'll just stop because if I go on I'll just start using the same phrases everyone else does.
I thought I might be watching a watered down version of Toy Story 2, I was wrong. Instead through these wonderful films we watched Andy grow up and all of us mourned the passing from children into adulthood with some brand new toys that will made us feel like kids all over again, for infinity and beyond.
awesome