Toy Story 5
Pixar’s latest entertaining sequel celebrates creativity as an antidote to the next generation’s screen addiction.
Back in the closet: Buzz Lightyear and Woody (right)
Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Toy Story 5 may be the most important film you will see this year. At least, it may be the most import that your children see. As the Toy Story franchise has evolved over the last 31 years, so has the toy industry, introducing more and more tech-heavy, wi-fi-friendly playthings which have less and less to do with the art of play. In the history of civilisation, play has contributed to some of the most significant breakthroughs in science and day-to-day living. Since the advent of the Internet and those digital distractions trapped in garish plastic mounts, improvised play necessitating any form of imagination has gone by the by. Poor Woody the pullstring cowboy, Bo Peep, Slinky Dog, Hamm and Rex the plastic Tyrannosaurus have found a worthwhile life – to bring joy to their respective young owners – increasingly difficult from one film to the next.
Seven years on from Toy Story 4, Bonnie (voiced by Scarlett Spears) is now eight-years-old and is finding it difficult making new friends. So her parents, with the best will in the world, buy her a high-tech tablet called Lilypad, in the hope that Bonnie will be able to connect with other children online. And, in no time at all, Bonnie becomes addicted to the machine, stops going outside and just sits on her bed transfixed by the new screen in her life. Overnight, her toys have become yesterday’s news.
As other films have explored the wonders of the digital age, from Wreck-It Ralph to Ready Player One (2018), Pixar and its Toy Story brand has been faithful to the wonderfully animated characters created by John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton and Joe Ranft. Toy Story (1995), executive produced by Steve Jobs, was the first computer-generated cartoon and brought a whole new sheen and realism to animation. Since then things have just got more sophisticated and it takes the introduction of some ‘animated’ sequences to push home just how photo-realistic the rest of the picture is. The deer seen here seems hardly less realistic than the one rendered in Disclosure Day. But it’s the personality of the characters that wins the day and there’s a couple of new additions to the dramatis personae that are already selling like hot cakes. There’s Lilypad herself (voiced by Greta Lee), a frog-like smart tablet that connects poor Bonnie to social media, and there’s the bizarrely scatological hygiene toy Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien) with a digital screen depicting unsavoury images which will no doubt appeal enormously to younger viewers. It even coins a new phrase, the “number 1.5”, referring to a wee accompanied by a fart.
Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) himself, having disappointed in Pixar’s incomprehensible Lightyear (2022), turns up in multiple guises when a ship runs aground on a deserted island and spills forth an army of the brand-new hi-tech action figures that follow the North Star to return to ‘Star Command’. Several story strands keep up the energy level, as Bonnie retires into herself, feeling more and more inadequate as she surveys her so-called ‘friends’ online. Meanwhile, Jessie the cowgirl (Joan Cusack) and her trusty steed Bullseye end up at the home of another eight-year-old girl, Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), who still loves to play with toys and is unafraid to admit it.
Before you say anything, yes, this is yet another strand of a familiar franchise, but this is a movie from Andrew Stanton, he who directed Finding Nemo and WALL-E, and he doesn’t direct a film that often. Toy Story 5, above and beyond its crucial message about the importance of harvesting a child’s imagination, is consistently amusing, visually inventive and surprisingly touching. It just sucks us into the vivid world of Bonnie’s childhood and as the toys wisecrack their way to kingdom come, Bonnie’s world implodes, all but validating the UK’s ban on social media for the under-sixteens next year. Take the kids.
Voices of Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Conan O’Brien, Scarlett Spears, Greta Lee, Shelby Rabara, Mykal-Michelle Harris, Craig Robinson, Lori Alan, Jay Hernandez, Bonnie Hunt, Kristen Schaal, Tony Hale, John Hopkins, Wallace Shawn, Ernie Hudson, Krys Marshall, Jeff Bergman, Blake Clark, Bad Bunny, Annie Potts, John Ratzenberger, Keanu Reeves, Alan Cumming.
Dir Andrew Stanton, Pro Lindsey Collins and Jessica Choi, Ex Pro Pete Docter, Screenplay Andrew Stanton and Kenna Harris, from a story by Andrew Stanton, Ph Matt Aspbury and Jean-Claude Kalache, Pro Des Bob Pauley, Ed Jennifer Jew, Music Randy Newman, Sound Ren Klyce.
Pixar Animation Studios-Walt Disney Studios.
101 mins. USA. 2026. UK and US Rel: 19 June 2026. Cert. PG.
