Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty, Don Rickles, Michael Keaton, John Ratzenberger

Directed by: Lee Unkrich

Pixar Studios

The Official Site of Toy Story 3

It seems like every time a Pixar movie is released the world is required to embrace it. It’s usually nothing worth fighting against as the company tends to make movies worth adoring but I always feel bad for those that have an opinion otherwise. These critics are destined to be shunned and lampooned for having a conflicting opinion and will forever be remembered as “the guy that just doesn’t get it�. I’m not setting you up for a negative review from me but I’m just cautiously putting out there - let’s maybe not get so carried away.

Pixar’s latest, Toy Story 3, a sequel and closer to the series that launched the company in 1995 is gripping, emotional and heartwarming, but not the whole time. It isn’t exactly the best movie ever. It’s not even the best Pixar movie. It’s not even the best Toy Story movie. At the time of its release you could argue that it may have been the best movie of the summer but that says more about the season’s failing than it does the film’s success. Still… It’s a damn fine movie.

The problem with Toy Story 3 (I feel so blasphemous even typing the “p� word) is that it starts on a down note and has nowhere to go but down. We catch up with the gang in a flashback, remembering the good old days when Andy lead Woody and Buzz on grand adventures and daring rescues. Cut to the toys a decade later, trapped in a toy chest desperate for attention.

The toys are thrown away, donated, abused by toddlers, dismembered, reset to factory settings, thrown away again, nearly incinerated on and on until, as an audience, it becomes more and more difficult to imagine a light at the end of the chaos. In the other films there was always the objective of getting home to Andy. But without a home and with no new direction it all felt grimmer and at times a little hopeless. That’s a lot for little kids, let alone this old sonofabitch to deal with.

It of course leads towards a satisfying conclusion that I will describe spoiler free as “exactly what we all showed up for�. This film races along under the delusion it’s telling us this “adventures in daycare� storyline about the lifespan of toys and sure it’s plenty creative, clever and entertaining, featuring a handful of valued laughs, interesting new characters and what is destine to become one of cinemas all time classic prison break sequences, but this final scene is the real reason the film was made. The reconciliation of what will become of these toys we have grown to love over the years is all that matters and is satisfying in EVERY way possible.

It’s not until this point that we’re able to let go and truly enjoy these characters the way we always had in the past. As a result the most satisfying moments of this film, other than the big scene, include the closing credits where we see clips of the toys at play, being themselves, having fun, the way we remember them and the way we want to remember them forevermore. I wish that charm were so easily infused in the rest of the film’s conflict.

Toy Story 3 is a movie to be seen but it has little to say besides, “Remember how great it was before?� and “The End�. It says that really well though. Of course it’s never really over. Last month images were released of the animated Hawaiian Vacation short that will run in front of Cars 2 later this summer. It’s easy to turn on the cynical cannons and let loose on Pixar for resurrecting something they just buried but I could never be mad at Buzz and Woody. Tell us a tale of imagination and wonder. I’m all ears.

Completists and parents should feel no shame in adding this to their collection. No one should feel any shame actually. It’s a delightful, well mad adventure that is inspiring to behold and heart warming to revisit. I just wouldn’t expect to be beholding or revisiting it nearly as much as the other two entries.

This is a comic and review I wrote back when the film originally came out last June. I never finished the comic so it got shelved. With the Oscar’s now come and gone I realized that I had about a week before this thing was completely irrelevant.

Nearly 10 months after the film’s release, everything that can be said has already been said so even if my review is as much slam as it is praise, that is a controversy long since settled on the Internet. Posting this review was more about getting back in to the habit of writing them on a regular basis. About getting the feeling for them again. It’s time to get my feet wet with something I’d let slip away. So we’ll see how that goes. Wish me luck. Cheer me on. I’ll need it.

As for the comic, you gotta love a good font gag. If only because they’re so damn rare!

If you read this far, you’re a real champ. If you’’d like to read more, I do a lot of movie talking on my Twitter account and I talk a lot about comics and art on my new Tumblr Blog. Be sure to come by and join in on the fun.