Director, Lee Unkrich, and writers, John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton's third installment of the critically acclaimed Toy Story movie series performs as a most skilled sword swallower: with depth. The movie begins with a renovated introduction of the first Toy Story where Andy creates a scene of dramatic story telling with Sheriff Woody (Hanks) taking on the evil, money-hungry "One-eyed Bart" (Mr. Potato Head voiced by Don Rickles). The scene quickly moves forward to introduce newly acquainted characters, Jessie (Joan Cusack) and Bullseye, yet omits some original characters in the piece, such as Woody's crush, Bo Peep.
Later on we come to find that there are plenty of toys that have been left out of the Toy Story 3 -not due to the writers' negligence, but to Andy's (Morris) riddance of his toys brought on by his entrance into young-adult years: cell phones, posters, computers, and college have become his new fantasy. This is the point of the movie that brutally reminds the audience that we have been following a movie series based on toys: it makes perfect sense that Andy doesn't play with them, but we still disagree with his choice to quit on them, so to speak.
Let's get this straight: the movie doesn't ask (or appear to at least) its audience to go home, dig up all of their childhood toys, and play with them one last time, but it does bring up an interesting stance on the verb, to share.
Throughout the entire film, the characters (toys included) are asked to dividend some type of bearing load, whether it be compromising for the sake of being together as the toys do by jumping into the Sunnyside box, the forced compromise Lotso (Strawberry Bear, voiced by Ned Beatty) inflicts upon Chuckles (Luckey) and Baby Molly, or the decision Andy makes to share all of his toys with Bonnie. There are plenty of sharing moments that occur throughout the film, but I'll stop there for the sake of exposing more of the story.
My only complaint about the film, and the series in general, is the exclusion of multicultural toys. We finally get a more gendered division of toys, but there are no black toys, nor are there black people in Toy Story 3. I'm quite appalled by this exclusion and wonder whether Lasseter or Unkrich could have possibly forgotten that daycare and toys have become increasingly diverse over the last fifteen years since the first Toy Story came to theaters. Sure, with the introduction of Spanish Buzz (Pena), Lasseter adds exoticism to Allen's Buzz Lightyear, but is that enough? Whoopi Goldberg is added in to voice Stretch, the slimy, gambling Octopus, but the buck (no pun intended) stops there.
Or does my ignorance of toys besiege me? Is it that all human-like toys are made of white skin and I haven't noticed? I remember having a Lando Calrissian action figure to go along with my Han Solo and Luke Skywalker Star Wars toy set.
Regardless of whether the toys are white, black, brown, yellow, red, or purple, Toy Story 3 provides a dramatic, endearing, and climactic (possible) conclusion (or refurbishment) to Pixar's Toy Story movie series. The film runs for one hundred and forty-nine minutes, and keeps you frantically glued to the screen for each second. The short film, Day & Night, that precedes Toy Story 3 is enjoyable, cute, and witty, and shouldn't be missed. The 3-D option for viewing Toy Story 3 contributes to a unique and delicate experience that's not overdone, yet supplies the film with depth beyond its story, as if it ever needed more.
Toy Story 3 is rated G.
