MOVIE NEWS: Toy Story 3

Another year, another buzz-worthy Pixar movie. Over the last four years alone, the fantastic film studio has released Cars, Ratatouille, Wall-E, and Up — the last three of which all won the best animated feature Oscar at the Academy Awards.

This year’s entry into the Pixar catalog is Toy Story 3. The original Toy Story movie came out 15 years ago, and is still hugely watchable today. But can the new movie live up to the series’ high expectations? I caught a preview earlier this week to see for myself, and I’m here to share some thoughts.

The movie brings back all our favourite toy characters: Woody, Buzz, Jessie,
Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, and so on. But there’s a big difference between this movie and the others in the series: their owner, Andy, is all grown up and he’s heading off to college.

All the toys are set to start a new life in Andy’s attic, but a mix-up has most of them sent to a daycare. It could be a happy accident or just the opposite. You’ll have to see the movie to find out which!

Here are a few observations about the movie:

1) It’s good.

2) It’s really good.

3) It’s really, really good.

Just for good measure, here are a few more observations:

1) It’s fresh. I talked about this in my Shrek Forever After review: a lot of sequels can seem a little dull. But Toy Story 3 feels as new and fresh as the original in the series. The filmmakers achieved this by adding new characters (Barbie and Ken, among others), and making sure they had a great story. And trust me: this story will keep you on the edge of your seat. Speaking of which…

2) It’s scary. While there are a lot of funny moments, our beloved characters spend quite a bit of the movie in peril — not only from their daring escapes, but also from a group of seriously mean and creepy-looking toys at the daycare. Anyway, it’s a lot scarier than it sounds. If you go see it, just be prepared for the occasional jolt of fright.

3) It doesn’t need to be seen in 3-D. I like watching movies in 3-D, but sometimes the technology seems unnecessary. This movie is a perfect example of that, particularly because it’s not so heavily based on action sequences and in-your-face special effects. The movie is great because of the story, and because we care about the characters, so you can save yourself some spending cash by seeing it in regular 2-D and not miss out on anything.

Overall, I loved this movie. (In fact, I’ve already added it to Craig’s Picks on the right-hand side of the blog). It made me laugh and it might have even made me cry a little — a rare feat!

Though, a warning: as I said above, it’s scarier than you’d expect. If that’s not your thing, then you might want to wait on this one a bit.

Talk to you next week!

Craig, owlblog@owlkids.com