movies: toy story 3

I'm going to come right out and say it... Toy Story 3 is kinda dark...

And it made me weep like you would not believe... but that's probably not really news to anyone, and maybe you'll all believe it quite easily.

The overriding theme of the third and final Toy Story movie is "loss"... the first two touched on it, but were more skewed towards "replacement" and "abandonment" respectively, but this seems to be the saddest, darkest and most heartbreaking of them all.

I just reread that last paragraph. Man... we let KIDS watch these movies? They're not exactly bright and happy are they? Replacement, abandonment and loss... yeah, that's a recipe for award winning children's entertainment right there!

But everyone ends up in a good place at the end of each movie, so that helps I think.

I don't think I've cried during a Toy Story movie though... other Pixar movies, sure... but I pretty much lost it through about the last quarter of this one.

The movie starts off dark actually... the toys have already been whittled down to a fortunate few who are trying to get Andy to notice them, to play with them, to love them again before he goes off to college, but he's 17 and not interested any more.

In fact, Stinky Pete's prediction in the last movie is particularly apt...

How long will it last, Woody? Do you really think Andy is going to take you to college, or on his honeymoon? Andy's growing up, and there's nothing you can do about it.

They've resigned themselves to storage in the attic... which is pretty depressing when you think about it... from being loved and adored, to ignored, to being packed up in a box and stored in an attic for who knows how long.

But, as is the formula with these movies, they end up far away and have to find a way to get back to Andy before the end of the movie.

And while there's a fair amount of comedy to lighten the mood, at heart this is possibly the least "funny" of the three movies.

I'm sure there will also be a couple of scenes towards the end that might scare little kids. I know I was feeling anxious about certain plot developments even though I know these things invariably work out for the best. And that was one of the scenes that made me start crying.

The other scene that totally wiped me out was the final scene (without giving anything away) where Andy decides on the fate of the toys (and as an interesting side note, Andy is played by the same actor, John Morris, who played him in the first two movies... at ages 10, 14 and now 24).

I think part of the emotion comes from the advances in animation... the humans in the first movie were very clunky and jerky, and even the textures were "almost but not quite", whereas now they're very beautifully rendered and the movement is pretty much spot on.

All in all, while it's not going to rank high enough to be my Favourite Pixar Movie Ever, and it is, as I've previously said, quite dark and maybe a little intense for some kids, it was an enjoyable movie.

yani's rating: 4 Mr Tortilla Heads out of 5