FILM REVIEW
TOY STORY 5
Rated PG
102 Minutes
Released June 19th
The Toy Story films look at life from a child’s eyes, and Toy Story 5 is no exception. We make a grave mistake if we think that a child’s world is any less emotional, frightening, complicated, or full of urgency than that of an adult. A child’s life has the same dynamics, perhaps with a bit more honesty thrown in. The dolls and toys who populate Toy Story are the anchors that hold down this world, and though they seem to be adults, they still have that innocent sense of discovery, and that is what drives the Toy Story series of animated films by Disney.
In the case of Toy Story 5, the children are “Bonnie” and “Blaze,” 8-year-olds who have adults who care about them and guide them, but to the film’s credit, the kids must figure out solutions to problems themselves. In this fifth movie in the series, the toys we know and love are all back, and since time has not stood still, they have all matured. They confront challenges we all deal with as we get older. “Buzz Lightyear” realizes he needs backup and has recruited an army of “Buzz’s” to campaign with him in his crusade for good. “Woody” is stressed out about his bald spot. The music is exceptional. In addition to Jack Antonoff’s score, there are songs by Randy Newman and Taylor Swift.
Andrew Stanton wrote the story and screenplay for Toy Story 5. He’s a native of Rockport, Massachusetts, a breezy small village at the tip of Cape Ann. I know this town well, used to spend my summers in the neighboring city of Gloucester, riding my bike the 4 miles to Rockport as a frequent day trip. It’s a quaint village with an overabundance of tiny painters’ studios, and it is one of the most often memorialized locations in the world in oil paintings. The predominance of visual arts and the fact that the town has been the location of many film shoots make it less improbable that a boy from Rockport would grow up to write some of the most-loved and visually poignant animated stories in modern cinema. Stanton has written some of the greatest Disney animated films, including Finding Nemo, WALL-E, and the first Toy Story.
The director, CalArts grad McKenna Harris, began her career as a character designer on the Cartoon Network series We Care Bears in 2015, and then was hired by Walt Disney Animation Studios as a storyboard artist, followed by a storyboard artist again and associate executive producer at Pixar Animation Studios. Toy Story 5 is Harris’s debut as a feature director.
Most people who watch a cartoon feature don’t realize how difficult and exacting a skill voice acting is. The actor has only their voice as a tool to record emotion or provide color and shading to their character – no facial expression, no body movement – that’s all done by the animator before they arrive to give vocal power to the player and match the visual with precision in dialogue, words, and cadence.
In the case of Toy Story 5, two of the lead voice actors are children. Scarlett Spears, who plays shy “Bonnie,” is an accomplished eight-year-old actress, singer, and dancer who has done film, TV, and commercials. She played “Young Glinda” in the live action film Wicked for Good, and is now a huge fan of Arianna Grande. Spears also plays a young character on General Hospital and “Young Dora” on Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado.
Mykal-Michelle Harris (no relation to the director) is “Blaze,” who befriends the lonely Bonnie. Harris started acting at the age of four and has experience in both live action and animation on film and TV. She guest-starred on four episodes of Big Little Lies in 2019 and played “Santamonica Johnson” on 36 episodes of Mixed-Ish in 2021.
Tom Hanks voices “Woody” as always, Tim Allen returns as “Buzz Lightyear,” and Joan Cusack as “Jessie the Cowgirl.” Conan O’Brien has a hilarious cameo as a toy named “Smarty Pants.” Keanu Reeves is the voice of “Duke Kaboom,” Alan Cumming is “Evil Bullseye,” and John Ratzenberger is “Hamm,” a lovable pig. Another notable cameo is “Pizza with Sunglasses,” voiced by the hugely talented international idol Bad Bunny. He’s not the only music superstar involved in this film – Taylor Swift sings a song she wrote for the movie, “I Knew It, I Knew You,” as the credits roll at the end.
The toys in the Toy Story movies are not just figments of the extraordinary imaginations of the animators. They have roots in real toy history. Woody was inspired by a pull-string cowboy doll and other popular cowboy dolls from the 1950’s and ‘60’s, and also by “Howdy Doody,” a marionette from one of the first children’s shows on television in the ‘50’s ( which I used to watch with glee as a toddler).
Pixar CEO John Lasseter had a “Casper the Friendly Ghost” doll with a pull string as a child, and during that time, astronaut toys became popular, hence the idea for “Buzz Lightyear” with a pull string, named after real astronaut Buzz Aldrin. The Slinky’s featured in the movie have been around since the 1940’s, and the Slinky Dog since 1952. Mr & Mrs Potato Head were tiny 1950’s toy pieces that were sold to plug into an actual potato. “Etch-a-Sketch” made its debut in 1960, and toy soldiers (like Buzz’s army) have been mass-produced since the 1930’s and handmade way before that.
The main theme of Toy Story 5 is how “hi-tech” toys have caused kids to become detached from the world around them. Last Sunday, that point was illustrated for me as I was having dinner in a restaurant by a family at a nearby table. Mom and Dad were busy eating and conversing. Their two cute daughters, about 3 and 5 years old, had bright-colored tablets, and the younger girl had a set of plastic headphones to match. The girls were riveted on their screens through the whole dinner, with no connection to their surroundings or their parents.
This story could just as well be about adults with their phones, laptops, and iPads. How many of you have read a book in the past 6 months? How many of you pick up the phone every day to call a friend? I’m as guilty as anyone. We need to take a good look at our lives and relationships.
In Toy Story 5, the gang, Woody, Buzz, and Jessie, are reunited 31 years after the original Toy Story movie, and they are as relevant as ever – Timeless! In this movie, you will find characters you can identify with, whether you’re 3 or 103. This is a good exercise for us to reconnect with our eight-year-old selves. We often don’t realize that we tend to lose a bit of innate intelligence as we grow out of our childhood. It might be worth taking a good, hard look around for it and work on retrieving it.
Kathryn Whitney Boole has spent most of her life in the entertainment industry, which has been the backdrop for remarkable adventures with extraordinary people. She is a Talent Manager with Studio Talent Group in Santa Monica. kboole@gmail.com.
