Toy Story 5

A Worthy Toy, Buried Under Too Many Boxes

The original Toy Story trilogy holds a special place in my heart, with the first film being that one movie I would endlessly rewatch on VHS with no sense of fatigue, utterly enraptured by its world and characters. Disney capped off the story beautifully in 2010 with Toy Story 3, yet as with the recent trend of Hollywood franchises, continued revisiting it to wring out further profits. This resulted in Toy Story 4 (2019), a film I enjoyed, but which has aged poorly in my eyes in terms of memorability. I have genuinely forgotten most of its plot and only remember the finale, which seemed to cement the end of the Woody and Buzz story. Nevertheless, more profits can be made, and we have now received Toy Story 5 (2026).

Toy Story 5 is the first film not centered on Woody (Tom Hanks) or Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) as the main character. Instead, it focuses on the cowgirl doll Jessie (Joan Cusack), who has taken over the leadership of the toys belonging to her kid, Bonnie (Scarlett Spears). The instigating incident of the film is the introduction of technology, specifically a tablet named LilyPad (Greta Lee), which becomes addictive and toxic for Bonnie as she stops playing with her toys altogether. This sends Jessie on a journey that brings her face-to-face with her painful past and abandonment issues stemming from her original owner, Emily, and along the way she meets new toys who challenge her blanket rejection of all technology, such as the potty-training toy Smarty Pants (Conan O'Brien).

Toy Story 5 is directed by Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton and co-directed by McKenna Harris in her feature directorial debut. Stanton has delivered some of Pixar's classics, such as A Bug's Life (1998), Finding Nemo (2003), and WALL-E(2008). With Toy Story 5, Stanton and Harris manage to deliver a story that feels like a more congruent and natural progression for our characters than the forgettable, harmless Toy Story 4. Because the film centers on Jessie's arc, which was already a layered and intriguing one earlier in the franchise, it has the emotional heft required to anchor a new film. This isn't to say Toy Story 5 reaches the heights of the original trilogy, but it does feel more like a genuine companion piece that adds narrative value to the series, rather than the glorified fan fiction that Toy Story 4 often felt like.

Yet for the first time in an obvious way in a Pixar film (a studio usually better at hiding its more blatant commercial calculations), you sense the studio's interference in the filmmaking process. Woody and Buzz are clearly the two iconic characters of the Toy Story franchise, yet their stories seemed to have been definitively closed out in Toy Story 4. In this immediate sequel, you sense that the creative minds behind it are trying to move on from them as central characters, yet they are incongruously and repeatedly shoehorned into the narrative in ways that never meaningfully affect the plot. Woody returns to help with the central challenge via one of the laziest plot contrivances imaginable, and Buzz is little more than a shadow hovering over the story's events. It feels increasingly obvious that neither of them was meant to appear as much as they do, getting in the way of Jessie's story instead. Yet in order to put them on the poster and sell tickets, Stanton and Harris appear to have been forced to find ways to include them. The same is true of a cute, if distracting, side plot involving a crate of Buzz Lightyear toys washed ashore on a deserted island. This subplot feels more like a Pixar short interspersed within the feature than an organic part of the narrative, and the toys eventually become deus ex machina devices that pull our characters out of unwanted situations in increasingly convenient ways.

It is this fluff that both unnecessarily pads the runtime and dilutes the otherwise strong central narrative of Jessie's story. Pared down, Toy Story 5 is a genuinely thoughtful look at the dilemma of technology and children, a debate currently being waged in legislatures, academia, and healthcare systems around the world. Pixar delivers a nuanced take that doesn't seek to cast things in black and white or deal in absolutes, but rather approaches the issue through the lens of tools that, used the right way, can enhance a child's life, and used the wrong way, can prove incredibly harmful. This debate plays out on multiple levels, accessible to both adults and children, once again showcasing Pixar's remarkable skill at servicing both audiences in parallel.

Pixar also retains all of its signature quality in its animation style, which once again proves breathtaking and an absolute marvel to take in, from the rendering of hair to reflective surfaces and every type of material in between. The voice cast is strong as always, with the welcome additions of O'Brien and Craig Robinson among the more notable new presences. Even Pixar's witty humor at its best is retained here in large part.

In the end, Toy Story 5 proves to be a weightier and more narratively satisfying entry than Toy Story 4, yet it never reaches the heights of the original trilogy. The film is uneven, weighed down by incongruous character inclusions and subplots that dilute rather than add. Its social commentary on technology is well argued and thoughtfully presented, arriving at a mature conclusion while also delivering a core message about how all relationships, past and present, hold value. Just because a relationship ends doesn't mean it didn't help you grow, or give you joy and happiness along the way. That increasingly seems to be my own feeling toward the Toy Story franchise, one who’s new entries I still enjoy today, but whose great value and impact in my life I find myself viewing more and more in the rearview mirror.

7.2/10