Another excellent story about life and love

Rating: 8/10 (19 June 2019)

'Toy Story 4' is the sequel no-one asked for, but it is another excellent entry in the Pixar filmography - probably not quite as great as the original 'Toy Story', or the most recent 'Toy Story 3' (crazy that even it's nine years ago!), but still a great film. We're reintroduced to Woody (Hanks), Buzz (Allen) Bo Peep (Potts), Jessie (Cusak), Slinky (Clark), Rex (Shaw), Hamm (Ratzenberger) and the gang in a flashback, which sets up the film as a reunion story for Woody & Bo Peep.
Now that the toys are enjoying their second lease on life after Andy passed them on, Bonnie (McGraw) is "their kid". When she goes to kindy, she creates a new toy - Forky (Hale), which is exactly what it sounds like. When Bonnie, her parents and the toys go on a roadtrip holiday, Forky gets lost and Woody embarks on a rescue mission. This search for Forky also parallels Woody's search for relevance.
There's plenty of adventure and toy-action, as well as plenty of great new characters - Duke Caboom (Reeves), Ducky & Bunny (Key & Peele), Gabby (Hendricks), Giggle (Maki) - but it's hard to go past the originals & "newer" additions Trixie the triceratops (Schaal) & Buttercup the unicorn (Garlin), including Mr Potato Head, pieced together by previous lines from the late Don Rickles. The friendship between Woody & Buzz is still key, but not at the forefront - it's almost a "love" story between Woody & Bo and a father/son story between Woody & Forky. Needless to say, excellent CGI, great soundtrack and a fantastic ending.