Film Review: Toy Story 3 (2010)
Posted on | July 13, 2010 | No Comments
Film Review: Toy Story 3 (2010)
Disney.com
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Andy is grown up and going to college. His once-beloved toys have spent years tucked away in a box, and are expecting to either go to the attic or to the landfill. Instead they end up donated – by accident – to the Sunnyside kindergarten. Sunnyside seems like a dream come true for discarded toys, but the dream soon turns into a nightmare.
The toys have to deal with the heartbreak of rejection as well as trying to find a place in a world where they have no owners. It seems almost cruel that they also need to fight some of the creepiest evil toys ever created by human imagination. I say that, and I have seen Akira.
What can I say? They really pulled all the breaks in this one. I laughed, I cried, and I found myself surprised and impressed by its emotional brutality. I had been expecting more of the same kind of light entertainment that we got with Toy Story and Toy Story 2; instead, this film explored themes such as loss of family and identity, the cyclical withering of love and innocence, and even the quiet acceptance of impending death. Heavy stuff – and unflinchingly delivered. And did I mention the creepy toys?
There was a lot of fun and funny stuff in this film too, from the opening live action version of playtime as it appears in a child’s imagination, to toy-like action heroics by Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) – not to mention his Spanish mode – but as my girlfriend put it: “If this didn’t make you cry, you have no soul.”
I should mention that we also meet the cutest little animated girl since Lilo, that I want a son just exactly like Andy, and that I seem to have a soul.
Dreamworks has been focusing on Ken (Michael Keaton) – Barbie’s boyfriend – in some of their promos, and he’s worth it. He got some of the biggest laughs. You could write a paper just on the film’s depiction of Barbie (played by Jodi Benson, and no longer the brainless sex object of Toy Story 2) and Ken and what it says about gender and presentation. Suffice it to say that Ken’s fabulousness is made into a running joke. Perhaps we should look into exactly why a metrosexual man is so funny. Is it because this is Ken, a picture of perfect masculinity presented to pre-teen girls, or because a man who loves glittery tuxedoes is automatically ridiculous? I’m happy to say that Ken does get to be a real character with an arc instead of just a punchline. Ken has agency, and the toys we actually like – Buzz and Woody, etc – accept him and his baby blue safari neck scarf without so much as a blink. In fact, his joining the good guys’ side coincides with his final happy acceptance of his own nature as a “girl’s toy”. Make of that what you will.
Other potentially objectionable jokes/stereotypes include the afore-mentioned Spanish Buzz, which presents a stereotypical (if not negative) Latino masculinity along the lines of Shrek’s Puss in Boots, and the continuing heteronormativity of Mr and Mrs Potato Head. The romance between Buzz and Jessie (Joan Cusack), though fun to watch, seemed as forced and pasted on as it did in the end of Toy Story 2, but then this film isn’t about them – it’s about the love between toys and their owner, and the sense of family that has developed out of years of friendship, and that packed all the punch you could hope for.
Children are strange creatures, so I can’t say how much they will enjoy this film, if it will make them scared or make them cry. Maybe that’s just us adults. If you’re an adult reading this, though, I can only recommend you see this film. Bring a handkerchief.
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Bechdel test:
1. It has at least two female characters
2. who talk to each other
3. about something other than a man.
Andy and Bonnie’s mothers talk to each other about their children, though that conversation turns to Andy. Bonnie and her mother talk to each other, and Andy’s mom talks to his sister about her toys. There were plenty of female characters among the toys (Mrs Potato Head, Barbie and Jessie being the most prominent ones, but there were also some new female toys), but I can’t remember for sure if they spoke to each other.
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