Bizarre, uneven, sometimes wise, with an emotional send-off

Rating: 6/10 (24 April 2020)

I'm in my late 20s. I grew up with Toy Story. Probably saw Toy Story 2 (1999) in theaters with my family and borrowed the VHS tape from my aunt. I loved that film and that Sarah McLachlan song "When She Loved Me." Still do.
When Toy Story 3 (2010) came out eleven years later, I was excited for it. I didn't mind the darker elements exactly but didn't love the film. While Toy Story 1 and Toy Story 2 left me with warm feelings of friendship and growth, Toy Story 3 was memorable for its sinister plot twist, which was never quite balanced out again by the wholesome or the heroic.
After being disappointed with Toy Story 3, I didn't rush to see Toy Story 4 (2019), which came out nine years later. It's April 2020 and of course I've heard about how powerful the story of Toy Story 4 is, how deep and complex, how poignant. All things I looked forward to, and found in some measure, but not without simultaneous contradiction and other unsettling issues.
Without giving too much away, Toy Story 4 is about growing out of old needs, and becoming sufficient without getting what you want, except actually it totally isn't and some characters are indulged anyway, because why not? When Toy Story 4 is actually about "putting away old toys," or old mindsets, as in the case with Woody, the story is mature and outstanding. But when it isn't, the story is contrived and pointless and wish-washy. Where Toy Story 4 progressed with Woody it backpedaled with Gabby and Bonnie, as well to some extent with Bo Peep, which left me wondering what exactly I should be coming away with.
Also for me, what started to become problematic was how aggressive the toys were to humans. Even if only in fantasy, the toys pummeled the humans, suggested sending the father of Bonnie to jail, actually sabotaged the tire of the family RV and caused its owner to temporarily lose control of the vehicle, etc etc. While I love the characters of Andy's toys, Jessie the cowgirl, etc, they really had a scary amount of power to do actual damage. Bo Peep at the end freed most of the carnival prize toys and talked about freeing other toys. Somehow the nice, sweet Toy Story world started to feel eerie, like what next, is all the toys going to turn on the humans?
The problem with Toy Story 4 is it's both too edgy and too bland--it's like if the universe of Toy Story suddenly went gothic as in Game of Thrones (a mismatch which should clue you in to how unsettling Toy Story 4 was for me), but then ended with GoT's non-answer season 8. This is the sort of unevenness Toy Story 4 has for me, which is why I can't rate the movie highly even though there are aspects I do genuinely appreciate.
One thing I did appreciate was how Toy Story 4 grew up with its audience, now twenty-some years later. I did like the depth of the portrayal of Woody's psychology, his issues of being a former favorite toy and now "trash," but I also did feel like some of the issues brought up were too mid-life crisis, like maybe one of the writers is having some major personal issues which didn't translate well to a kid's film. Again the unevenness of deep-seated, adult conflicts and overly scrubbed, kid-friendly resolutions.
Toy Story 1 & 2 are natural sequels, and rather finish the Toy Story series for me. Toy Story 3 is an extended epilogue, and Toy Story 4 is a strange bonus feature with some character development for Woody. Who even thought about Bo Peep and how did she suddenly grow a personality and a backstory? I don't even. . .
While I don't consider Toy Story 4 a success, it does have a very sentimental and appropriate send-off at the end for fans, like a final and very touching goodbye. A great deal of love and care went into those final scenes which warms my heart. Toy Story is a lovely franchise, and it deserves a send off, as well as a chance to finally end for good, unless it becomes an even more bizarre and twisted version of itself. While I don't think the ending of Toy Story 4 was significant or even good in itself, it certainly was a nice farewell for the franchise.