They ruined the franchise

Rating: 2/10 (6 July 2019)

This movie is appallingly bad. The animation is great. But there's no soul to this movie. The team of characters we love are mostly absent, and the movie focuses on new characters and Woody. There's no depiction of the loving, loyal bonds between the toys that's been at the core of every Toy Story movie. And the ending, my god the ending. Who greenlit this ending and what were they smoking? My jaw hit the floor at the ending, and I was too confused by it to feel any emotion whatsoever. I literally walked out of the theater in a daze wondering what I'd just seen. It bore no resemblance to any previous movie in the franchise. Suffice it to say, the ending of this movie destroys every core principle of the toy world. It's completely out of character for Woody and flies in the face of everything we've learned about how these toys view their place in the human world and in each other's lives. They didn't need to make this movie, and I wish to heaven they hadn't, because it ruins my sense of where we left our toy friends at the end of TS3. I'll basically have to pretend TS4 doesn't exist, unless they ever make a TS5 that rights the wrongs committed by this one. If you loved the first three Toy Story movies and feel great attachment to their world, do yourself a favor and skip this one. For all the beautiful animation and the creative creepy dummies shambling around, there's no emotional center to this movie, no heart. It's not worthy of the Toy Story name.