'Toy Story 4' is all Looks, but it Really is a Looker
As more and more people speculate about the rapid decline of Pixar’s films in recent years, one point that has never been suggested is a decline in their visual team. With each entry into the Pixar collection comes new advancements and achievements to the computer generated animation form. Toy Story 4 is no different. Returning to a familiar world for the fourth time has given the animators at Pixar a place to shine. So many of the characters have been granted new textures and minute details that add flair to their movement and dialogue. Bo Peep, whose entire look is reinvented for the film, now dons a porcelain sheen that captures the light just so. It’s a small change to be sure, but it serves as a constant reminder of the miniature world that this story exists in. On top of this, the franchise is propelled to new heights visually with an alluring blend of backdrops. From a desolate foggy highway to a vividly colorful and lively carnival, Toy Story 4’s winding narrative is transporting, granting entry to a familiar world from a uniquely tiny perspective.
The bulk of the film’s conflict revolves around an antique store, which proved to be a surprisingly intricate set piece. In Finding Nemo, the animators were asked to view marine wildlife as a way of studying how the creatures navigate their home, as well as providing an opportunity to the witness countless coral configurations of the Great Barrier Reef. For Toy Story 4, though admittedly less exciting, it appears the animators closely consulted the layout of dusty rinky-dink shops nationwide. The caked soot of the ceiling rafters, spiderwebbed cracks between bookshelves, and forgotten whosits and whatsits scattered throughout the store are presented with jaw-dropping precision. At one point in their trek through the shop, Bo & Co. find their way to a colorful club located inside an old pinball game, complete with glowing bumpers and scattered mess of wires. It is in moments like these that the film takes the extra leap from the world that humans can see, but largely ignore, to the world that that we do not. This level of immersion can be so engrossing that it occasionally eclipses the narrative.
I find that too often, due praise of animation is forgotten, sacrificed instead for topical criticism of plot and character. For this film, much of the recent criticism is earned. Justin Chang’s NPR review “To Infinity and Be Done” is particularly biting and amusing. However, recognizing Toy Story 4’s exemplary animation gives credence to the work of hundreds without whom this story could never have existed. Now, all that being said, where on Earth was Buzz Lightyear for this entire movie?
Buzz is severely underutilized in this film, in all likelihood due to Tim Allen’s repeated conflicts with Hollywood at large. The small portion of the narrative he does occupy is absurd and alarmingly regressive for his character. For all the lessons Buzz has learned over the course of the last three movies, he somehow manages to be the same belligerent old dult he was when we met him. In an early scene, Woody does his best to explain to him what it means to have a conscience, calling it an “inner voice” that informs your decision making. Buzz takes this to mean the battery-operated buttons on his chest that spout random starship jargon could give him moral guidance. At first it works, and the one-and-done joke lands as a classic example of Buzz’s unspoken idiocy. But then it works again, and again, until soon enough this schtick has become a ridiculous narrative tool that actually propels the plot. What’s worse, at no point in the film does Buzz fully grasp the fact that he has a conscience.
This is just one of the innumerable blatant conveniences and coincidences that become impossible to ignore over the course of the film. Where the original Toy Story films require that toys take extreme caution to avoid being seen by humans, in the latest film Woody, Bo, and countless others throw themselves around packed public places with reckless abandon. The impact of this repeated convenience is, for the most part, a detriment to the human characters in the film. The close calls are all believable in the first Toy Story, but the latest film consistently prompts the question “How the hell did they not see that?” Bonnie’s parents, in failing to see their daughter’s moving toys over and over again, become buffoonish, all culminating in a ridiculous scene where the toys effectively hijack an entire RV.
On top of an all-too-perfect plot is a bizarre, scrambled cast of supporting characters. They serve more as an opportunity for Disney to showcase the voice talent they snatched for this film than to actually help expand the colorful and wildly original tapestry that the first three Toy Story features created. The stuntman Duke Kaboom tries desperately (and fails) to create the next Keanu Reeves meme. Even Keegan Michael-Key and Jordan Peele’s voices as Ducky and Bunny essentially play like a supplanted, kid-friendly Key and Peele sketch. Their presence in the film lends little more than one liners.
But all of these nitpicks are largely in place to grant more screen time and narrative focus to the central character of film, Woody. And indeed, I would be willing to set aside my issues with the subpar subplots if the bulk of the film presented a cohesive, coherent, and important message. Unfortunately, the sad truth of Toy Story 4 is that its story never had to be told. The message, though muddled, is simple enough. Woody has never gotten over Andy, and values the importance of his ‘kid’ over the well-being of himself and his friends. His journey, then, is to establish in himself a sense of independence and self-respect. But never does the film explore why Woody is so attached to his notions of purpose, and what specifically is harmful about those notions. Indeed, the film becomes so tied up in its multitude of character arcs that it fails to say much of anything by the end.
I would have preferred to have been sorely disappointed by this film on all counts. Something along the lines of American Psycho 2: an abomination so far removed from the source material that it can be easily buried and forgotten without tainting the original. Sometimes, its easier to watch a franchise you love tank and fail to get back up than to see it flounder in mediocrity for as long as it remains profitable. But that’s exactly the issue with Toy Story. These are excellent characters, who do, indeed, have potential for future stories. But Disney, in their consistent pressure on Pixar to make fast and marketable sequels, has squeezed out a film that feels fundamentally unfaithful to the foundations of the Toy Story world. Who knows if Toy Story 4 will rack up the numbers to make another sequel. Whatever the case, at least we know that what comes next will look gorgeous.
