Jun 23, 20195 min read

Toy Story 4 (2019)

Toy Story 4

Released June 21, 2019

Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the rest of the gang embark on a road trip with Bonnie and a new toy named Forky. The adventurous journey turns into an unexpected reunion as Woody's slight detour leads him to his long-lost friend Bo Peep. As Woody and Bo discuss the old days, they soon start to realize that they're two worlds apart when it comes to what they want from life as a toy.

CREDITS

Directed: Josh Cooley

Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Pots, Keanu Reeves, and more.

Rated: G

Runtime: 100 min

SPOILERS BELOW

It blows.

Ok, just kidding but it wasn't quite as good as it should have been. First off let's talk about where we last left off with our group of friends. In "Toy Story 3" we left as Woody and friends owner, Andy, went off to college and handed his favorite toys off to a sweet little girl named Bonnie. This ending just felt right, it just made sense. It was the perfect conclusion to this story.

So, in true Pixar fashion, they made a cash grab and made another movie when nobody asked for one and no story needed any elaboration. This felt like a cash grab even while watching it. That being said there still were some redeeming moments, some funny bits, and some nostalgia feels.

Let's pause for just a moment and talk about our new characters.

FORKY: Voiced by Tony Hale (Arrested Development, Veep). Forky is literally a spork with eyes glued to him, pipe cleaners for arms and a broken popsicle stick for feet. He's wonderful. There really isn't much more to say about him though, as the character really doesn't have much heart. Though the character isn't very deep he is funny throughout, and it really doesn't matter in the end.

BUNNY & DUCKY: Voiced by Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key respectively. Now, there are reasons why I felt I had to mention these guys together. THEY ARE LITERALLY SEWN TOGETHER! Bunny is a stuffed bunny and Ducky is a stuffed ducky, pretty accurate names. The two are sewn together by the hands and they are totally codependent. I actually loved these guys and felt like Key and Peele being in this movie and together in this fashion was a nice easter egg for the parents.

DUKE CABOOM: Voiced by Keanu Reeves. Yes, the mother f*cking man himself! Duke is essentially a Canadian version of the Evel Knievel stunt cycle toy that every kid had in the 1970s. This character was barely in the movie but he was funny in parts. Duke Caboom was a decent addition to the franchise.

GABBY GABBY: Voiced by Christina Hendricks (Mad Men). The new "bad guy" for this movie. She's a creepy 1950s doll, like creepy on some real levels.

Ok, now let's get back to what we were doing. So let's attack the redeeming moments first. Toy Story 4 does give us the same "feel" that we've gotten used to over the last twenty-four years (Toy Story was released in 1995 believe it or not). There are moments where you feel the characters the way you did the first time you ever saw it. Woody is completely dedicated to his new owner, Bonnie, so much so that he breaks the rules and follows her to kindergarten where she was feeling completely alone. He helps her when all the other kids ignore her and she was forced to sit alone. The children were doing arts and crafts when Woody gave her some art supplies from the garbage and Bonnie then creates Forky out of those. Because Forky appears in a time when Bonnie really needed a friend, she then becomes completely attached to him. Woody spends the rest of the movie ensuring that Forky is always there for Bonnie (he really doesn't want to be a toy considering he is made out of trash).

There are times when Woody comes across as almost pathetic in his pursuits, but what really is pathetic is that all the characters that we've all grown to love are barely in the movie. I think Jessie only has one or two lines in the entire movie and the rest of the cast are ignored entirely. What was really disappointing is that my two-year-old son is obsessed with Buzz (99.9% of the reason we took him to see this movie) and you almost forget he exists. Buzz is used as nothing more than a plot device, and badly at that.

Every movie needs a villain and Toy Story 4 is no different but it comes across as very creepy. Gabby Gabby, and her horde of Dead Silence ventriloquist dummies, will scar your children for life and creep out adults as well. Gabby has some sociopathic tendencies and is an absolute master manipulator. I was not a fan at all of any of this, she gave me the heebie-jeebies. So Gabby is broken, her voice box needs repair, and when she meets Woody (who's from the same time period and has a working voicebox) she immediately decides to rip him open and steal his voicebox. Rude.

I promised you something positive would be included in this review and here they are. Key and Peele's characters are responsible for the lone laughs in this movie. I don't say that lightly because they had me laughing so hard that I almost fell out of my chair. That's about it for the funny bits.

Onto the next positive thing, the return of Bo Peep. It always seemed a bit odd the way Bo wasn't included at all in the last movie. Not only was she just absent entirely, but they also don't even tell us what happened. In the first scene of Toy Story 4, they show us what happened to Bo. It wasn't all that crazy of a disappearance either, as she basically was just sold on Craigslist to a creepy guy in a raincoat. We meet back up with Bo nine years after and she is a #badbitch, a renegade lost toy that is living her best "Mad Max" life. I loved them bringing her back and making her such a strong and resilient "woman" was a great move.

Other than Woody chasing down Forky at every turn really the only story arc of the movie was the rekindled love interest of Woody and Bo. The theme of their love ran throughout the movie and, while it does fit, just seemed kind of awkward and forced. This really left a bad taste in my mouth in the end as Woody then abandons his child, all the friends he has, and the only life he's ever known to run off with Bo. This did not at all fit for me and it seemed very abrupt.

In the end, the movie was only OK and after looking at how it was rated by critics I almost feel weird posting this because they disagree entirely (paid by Disney). Roger Ebert gave this movie a 4/4, 9/10 on IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 98%. The animations were absolutely stunning and the story was stale. I feel Disney relied entirely on nostalgia and I guess it worked for some people. I give this movie a 5.5/10. Maybe go see it, I guess, but don't get your hopes up all that high. My two-year-old is obsessed with Toy Story and even he wasn't all that entertained.