It's decent, but simply not good enough to warrant getting the toys back out of the box.

Rating: 6/10 (27 June 2019)

I'll start by saying that 'Toy Story 4' is definitely a good film. It has outstanding animation (with almost photo-realistic environments), tells a fairly thematically rich narrative that doesn't pander to children, and is a decently fun time overall. However, it's simply not good enough to warrant getting the toys back out of the box. 'Toy Story 3' was an absolutely perfect ending to the series, expertly wrapping up all of the themes and character arcs in a very satisfying way, and the heads at Pixar said they would only make a fourth movie if they could come up with a storyline that was as good or better than that of the original trilogy. Unfortunately, this one just doesn't make the cut. It lacks the humour and wit of the first two films and the pure heart of the third, meaning that it's only a middling Pixar effort (though that is to say better than the majority of animated films out there). It has a strong opening act that sets up some nice, thought-provoking themes, however these are never really expanded upon and somewhat thrown out in service of other, less-interesting ones. Take the character of 'Forky' for example. The (highly marketed) theme and arc surrounding his character are very interesting, yet they are only one of many that are pretty underdeveloped and quickly resolved. That seems to be the biggest problem with the film as a whole: there are too many cooks in the kitchen. It has eight credited story writers and this is extremely obvious. Unlike any of the previous entries in the franchise, it lacks a clear through-line in terms of theme and this is a great detriment to the piece. What's worse, however, is that the message that the film finally settles on is completely contradictory to that of the original trilogy, and some character arcs fully go back on what was established in those prior entries. I can see what they were trying to achieve, and in its own right the message isn't a bad one, yet it simply doesn't work here as this is a direct continuation of the first three films. It's easy to say that you shouldn't compare this fourth entry to the rest of them and that you should take it as its own thing, but at the end of the day that's impossible to do as it's not it's own thing. Had it been a sort of spinoff, focussing on different characters in the same world, that wouldn't have been such a big ask. As it stands though this is definitely 'Toy Story 4', a direct follow-on exploring the lives of the same characters, so direct comparisons to the first three are inevitable, and it should have taken them and their character arcs into consideration. Another issue is that the original supporting characters, including Jesse who can sort of be seen as one of the leads, are severely underused here. Classic characters such as Hamm, Rex, the Potato Heads and Slinky only have a couple of lines each and add nothing to the overall narrative. Even Buzz, who is in the film quite a bit, doesn't really have much to do and he sort of seems out of character. This is a huge shame as those characters and their individual personalities brought a lot of the charm to the first three films. There are new side characters introduced in this film that get a lot of the screen time, but unfortunately they just aren't all that interesting and it seems a shame to have all of the great classic characters do practically nothing so that these new additions can just be okay. Like I initially said though, this is far from a bad film. There's definite enjoyment to be had here and it's attempts at exploring big ideas are admirable. It's just simply not good enough, however, when 'Toy Story 3' ended the franchise so perfectly. Had it been funnier, more exciting and more than middling Pixar, it wouldn't have been such a problem that it reopened the 'Toy Story'. As it stands though, it's unfortunately quite a disappointing return. 6/10