TOY STORY 4: The Rise Of Forky

Now playing at a multiplex near you:

TOY STORY 4 (Dr. Josh Cooley, 2019) 

When I first heard a few years after TOY STORY 3 that Pixar was possibly planning a fourth entry, I didn’t like the idea at all. 3 had such a beautifully emotional ending that felt like a perfect conclusion to the trilogy. It just seemed a bit cynical to milk the franchise any further.

But I must say that I fairly enjoyed TOY STORY 4. I still don’t think it was really necessary but with all the gags that land, the gorgeous animation, and emotional impact how can one care?

So nine years after the third installment, but just a few years later in the movie’s world, we catch up with our beloved gaggle of playthings in the care of preschooler, Bonnie, voiced by Madeleine McGraw, who we met at the end of the previous adventure. Woody, again voiced by Tom Hanks, stows away in Bonnie’s backpack on her first day of kindergarten orientation because he’s worried about her being overwhelmed.

After some mean kid takes Bonnie’s arts and crafts supplies and tosses them in a waste can, Woody retrieves what he can of them, along with some trash, and the little girl fashions a toy made out of a spork, a couple of mismatched googly eyes, a red pipe-cleaner for eyes, a little putty for a mouth and eyebrow, and popsicle sticks for feet. Bonnie names her new friend Forky, and he becomes her new favorite toy.

To Woody’s surprise, Forky, comes alive with the voice of Tony Hale (Arrested Development, Veep), with movable appendages. Problem is, Forky thinks he’s trash (which he is) and keeps jumping into trash cans to be back where he thinks he belongs.

Bonnie takes Forky and all her toys, including Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack), tricertop Trixie (Kristen Schaal), and plastic piggy bank Hamm (Pixar regular John Ratzenberger), on a road trip with her parents in a rented RV.

Still on his kick to get thrown away, Forky hurls himself out of the vehicle’s back window and Woody goes after him. Woody is able to find Forky and while walking to the RV Park that Bonnie’s family is staying, Woody is able to convince him that he’s more than trash – he’s a toy and has an important role. When they get to town, they come across a shop called Second Chance Antiques, where Woody sees Bo Peep’s lamp in the window.

Woody and Forky journey into the store where they meet Gabby Gabby, a ‘50s-era pullstring doll from the voiced by Christina Hendricks. Gabby Gabby is initially a sweet character, but it turns out that she’s the film’s villain, who’s plotting to steal Woody’ voice-box. Folks might be tipped off to this from her foursome of creepy ventriloquist dummies that follow her orders.

Also during this antique store segment, Woody is reunited with Bo Peep (Annie Potts), who was absent from 3, so that their special relationship can be rekindled.

This is as far as I’ll go with the plot as the second half is a busy bunch of chase sequences punctuated by tender, and poignant moments, all of which are effective and fun. There are highly amusing cameos by Mel Brooks as Melephant Brooks, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele as carnival toys Ducky and Bunny, Keanu Reeves as stunt motorcyclist Duke Caboom, Carol Burnett as Chairol Burnett, and Carl Reiner as Carl Reineroceros which help the film keep its humor flow going.

While I originally didn’t want TOY STORY 4 - the full length debut by director Cooley - I have to admit that I found it on par with the rest of the series. Also I really loved Forky. He’s a hilarious piece of trash, I mean toy, that Hale voices wonderfully, and I’d love to see more of him. Dammit – I didn’t want 4 and now I’m pinning for 5? This is how Pixar gets you.

More later...

As Predicted Pixar Saves The Sucky Summer Day

TOY STORY 3 (Dir. Lee Unkrich. 2010)



Like many film folks, in the days before a long awaited sequel in a beloved franchise appears I like to revisit the earlier movies - especially if I haven't seen them in a long time. It's to remind me of the flavor of said films, yet it can also feel like doing homework sometimes. Re-watching the first TOY STORY (1995) and its follow-up TOY STORY 2 (1999) though, wasn't like doing homework at all. 


The films hold up as immensely enjoyable endlessly inventive masterworks. The TOY STORY films established Pixar Studios as the leading creators of CGI-animated features that built a beautiful track record of critically acclaimed hits including some of the best films of the last decade - FINDING NEMO, UP, WALL-E, and RATATOUILLE to name a handful. It's easy to be cynical about sequels, but Pixar is a name to be trusted, and you won't go wrong trusting them here. 


The return of Sheriff Woody (Tom Hanks), Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), and their fellow toy friends is happily up to the high standards of their canon and even more happily its one of the few cinematic saviors of this summer of suck. It's been over a decade since we've last seen the disparate troop of talking toys and we catch up with them as their now teenage owner Andy (voiced by John Morris) is packing for college. The toys fret over their fate - will they be stored in the attic, sold in a yard sale, or thrown away? 


To their surprise, Andy picks Woody to take with him to school and puts the others in a garbage bag. Luckily he's just taking them to the attic, but in a moving mix-up they are taken to the curb by Andy's mother (voiced by Laurie Metcalf). Woody tries to save them, but nearly gets thrown away himself. 


After freeing themselves from the garbage bag, the toy troop (including the returning voices of John Ratzenburger, Don Rickles, Joan Cusack, Estelle Harris, and Wallace Shawn) realize that their life with Andy is over and that they should collectively climb into a box set to be donated to Sunnyside Daycare. Woody wants them to return home, but his friends immediately take to the lushly lit facility and the warm friendly welcome by the leader of the left behind toys: a pink strawberry teddy bear named "Lotso" - short for Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear (wonderfully voiced by Ned Beatty). 


 While Woody tries to get back home, the toys find that things aren't what they seem at Sunnyside. I'll hold off on further major story Spoilers!, but I'll just report that there's a romantic subplot sponsored by Mattel in which Barbie (Jodie Benson) meets Ken (Michael Keaton), Buzz Lightyear gets his settings stuck in a Spanish mode, and there's a young girl (Emily Hahn) who Woody is briefly in the custody of that owns a few other new toy characters (voices of Timothy Dalton, Beatrice Miller, Javier Fernandez Pena, and Bud Luckey). 


 A superlative sequel in which all of the elements of the wealth of close scrapes, captivating chases, and absorbing attention to the exorbitant detail of the TOY STORY world are attended to excellently. It's funny, exciting, and sometimes even scary, yet it will most likely be remembered for its strong emotional pull. 


The previous films were well rooted in sentimentality about the innocence and imagination of childhood balanced by the sad acknowledgment that these joys are fleeting, and play-time has to end someday. TOY STORY 3 doesn't shy away from these themes; it enriches them further making it the most thoughtful and touching film of the series. Pixar (and Disney) did it again. 


They made a wonderful movie that will take everyone from children to grown adults on a ride from doubling over with laughter to being reduced to tears. They also made so a 40 year old man can admit that, without shame, he can get worked up about a cast of animated plastic playthings accessing their worth. See? It felt good admitting that. Really good. 


More later...

WILD HOGS #1 - America Has Spoken

"This whole country's just like my flock of sheep!" - Lonesome Rhodes (Andy Griffith) A FACE IN THE CROWD (Dir. Elia Kazan, 1957)

WILD HOGS (Dir. Walt Becker, 2007) 

In the last few years there has been much op-ed piece and pundit speak about whether movie critics really matter any more. If we judge solely by the case of WILD HOGS the answer is a deafening “Hell NO!” 

This film, which was critically panned by practically everyone (it has a 15% approval rating = rotten on the Tomatometer), was the #1 movie for several weeks when it opened earlier this year even staying in the top ten 13 weeks after its release! 

It was the #1 DVD in sales upon release and rentals (now it's #3) and the #1 download right now online according to iTunes. It’s like it’s giving the finger to every movie critic ever! So yeah, I had to see for myself – I couldn’t take anybody’s word for it. I put it in my Netflix queue and naturally it came up “Very Long Wait” which made me feel even more ashamed to giving in to what I knew was going to be an atrocious experience.

And boy was it! Another depressed yuppies take to the road in an attempt to re-boot their stale lives – it's CITY SLICKERS get their GROOVE BACK by way of EASY RIDER and LOST IN AMERICA. 

Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, and the really slumming it William H. Macy are the motorcycle crew here – they face off with real bikers led by Ray Liotta while Macy falls for Marissa Tomei. That’s about all of what happens here unless you want to count the endless stopping to go to the bathroom jokes and all the homophobic humor especially embodied in a gay cop (Scrubs’ John C. McGinley), who may be the most offensive character in a movie comedy in a long time. 

I didn’t think one second of this film was funny – I didn’t even smile at the Peter Fonda cameo (especially as it is such a contrived walk-on). With its base, broad and just plain boring kind of comedy WILD HOGS is the movie equivalent of pig slop but I know, my opinion doesn’t matter - as Stephen Colbert says "the market has spoken."

Post Note: There has been much speculation that a significant percentage of the gross of WILD HOGS was from teenagers who bought tickets to it and then attended 300 but that doesn't explain the DVD and download numbers. Maybe it's a Red States thing.

More later...