Jessie Rides Bullsey and Ropes in a Winner with Heartfelt Toy Story 5
Just over three decades after the first Toy Story changed animation forever, Pixar’s popular franchise of sentient toys doing everything they can (and more) to bring joy to the lives of the children who own them keeps managing the impossible. Every entry in the series has been close to perfect, with 2010’s Toy Story 3 arguably one of the greatest films, not just animated, but films, ever made.
This trend miraculously continues with Toy Story 5. With not quite the same time jump between installments, the latest iteration picks things up with the primary group of Buzz (voiced by Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), Bullseye, Rex (Wallace Shawn), and all the rest of the toys (sans Woody) still amongst young Bonnie’s (Scarlett Spears) favorite companions. But the youngster is having trouble making friends. Many of those in her age group have tablets and other technological devices to play with, while Bonnie is content using her imagination to entertain herself. They think that’s silly.
Enter Lilypad (Greta Lee). This toy is a fully functional high-tech tablet filled with learning games and chat functions that allow its user to communicate with other kids instantaneously. Jessie immediately sees Lily as a threat and goes out of her way to convince the other toys that their days in Bonnie’s bedroom will be numbered if they let tech take over. The cowgirl even goes so far as to contact Woody (Tom Hanks) via walkie-talkie so she can express her worries to someone who she knows will listen to her.
Nothing is ever as simple as a short synopsis might sound in a Toy Story adventure, and this fifth entry is no exception. Woody makes it back to Bonnie’s to find Buzz in charge and Jessie (and Bullseye) gone. Lily is lording it over the other toys. She sets up Bonnie in a new friend group chat, thinking that it doesn’t matter whether or not she has anything in common with the other children, as her algorithm says this is for the best. Jessie and Bullseye have been found by the side of the road by a kindly elderly couple who return the cowgirl and horse to their home, to Jesse’s first home, the secluded farmhouse (still with a tire swing hanging from a tree on a secluded grassy hill) from Toy Story 2.
It gets even crazier from there. Bonnie gets cyberbullied. Jessie meets new tech toys Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien), Atlas (Craig Robinson), and Snappy (Shelby Rabara), and learns maybe she’s been wrong to prejudge them. The kid, Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), living in Jessie’s old house, collects horses and has an imagination every bit as expansive and as expressive as Bonnie’s is. Woody learns Buzz wants to propose to Jessie. A whole cargo hold full of shipwrecked modern-day Buzz Lightyear toys is trekking their way to Star Command. There’s a lot to unpack.
Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton, the driving force behind classics like Finding Nemo and WALL•E, returns to the director’s chair for this sequel, co-writing the screenplay with collaborator McKenna Harris. The pair have come up with a sensational scenario that pays loving homage to the previous four features yet also takes things into the here and now with surprising ease. It’s somewhat shocking how introspective and forward-thinking so much of this scenario is.
By focusing on Jessie having PTSD flashbacks to what happened between her and Emily in Toy Story 2 as tech toys begin to make her feel insignificant and unworthy of a child’s affections, Stanton and Harris are able to talk about hot-button issues like shortened attention spans, social isolation, A.I. overreliance, and degradation in critical thinking skills without being overbearing or didactic. Better, they do it in a way young children can easily relate to, while parents will find substantial nuggets they’ll want to mull over afterward as well.
Ranking this series is impossible. If I say this outing is the least of the five (it might not be; I need to do a full rewatch), that still makes Toy Story 5 close to perfect. From new characters who steal scenes left and right (O’Brien is a voice actor revelation), to Cusack’s superlative vocal performance towering far above anything she’s ever accomplished as Jessie, to a climactic time capsule revelation that broke my heart into pieces, there was nothing about this latest chapter I didn’t enjoy.
You’ve still got a friend in Toy Story, and this friendship may just last forever. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Film Rating: 3½ (out of 4)
