User reviews

I liked many things about Toy Story 4, except the fact that it came after Toy Story 3. Toy Story 3 was such a perfect conclusion to the iconic trilogy that this feels like a tacked-on epilogue. I enjoyed the characters, I thought the story had some clever moments, but I just would have preferred it if they would have changed a few minor details and made this movie occur between Toy Story 2 & Toy Story 3.

Greetings from Lithuania.

The few things i admired about "Toy Story 4" was amazing animation and some sweet moments and few funny ones here and there. Also there was an incredible chase sequence in the middle. Other then that i think it was the weakest in the series. I loved parts 1-3 and was surprised when they did the 4th one, because third one kinda perfectly ended the series. But money wheel needs to spin i guess, and here we have "Toy Story 4".

Overall, i think "Toy Story 4" was unnecessary and kinda even felt like direct to DVD. Yet as a animated film it does look amazing and it was pretty OK overall, but nothing to write home about.

I personally think that Toy Story 3 was the perfect finale for this movie series (With shorts such as Toy Story That Time Forgot as the colophon) but this was an okay follow-up.

I guess all those fans who had Bo Peep as their favorite character would be more than happy to see her again after her notorious abscence in Toy Story 3.

Overall, it was a pretty decent movie, fun to watch but without the same emotional impact of the third part.

7.5/10.

As with every Pixar film you have your small, genius details and beautiful animation that brings there films to life. But here I found that there was no substance behind the beauty. Lots of our beloved characters were given minimal attention and seemed somewhat useless to the story. The story seemed impulsive with little direction, our characters jumping at anything that moved. The films villain seemed like subplot and didn't seem like a real threat. The first 20 minutes were my highlight. It seemed reminiscent of earlier Toy Story films and explored experiences that we can all relate to. Despite an uninspired villain, chaotic plot and underdeveloped characters I still enjoyed myself. Within the film there was so much creativity, humour and some genuinely moving moments. I just couldn't help but feel disappointed when this film is compared to its predecessors in the franchise.

(Also please stay to the very end of the film, you will not be disappointed)

I'll never forget seeing Toy Story 3 in the IMAX. Especially the ending. That heartwrenching moment when our main character has to grow up and put his childhood behind him is burned in my memory and is a surefire way to make me cry during a movie. It wasn't so much what was happening that made it such an impactful scene, it was what it meant for each of us on a personal level that made it just... work so well. Toy Story 3 was the perfect spot to end the series. The ending of that movie was a perfect bookend to the story.

Toy Story 4, therefore, is the three or four additional chapters tacked onto the end of a long novel that should've been left on the cutting room floor. Take the heart and adventure of the first 3 films and the emotionally wrenching conclusion of the third one, suck all the life out of them and you have Toy Story 4 in a nutshell.

From what I saw, I couldn't pick out any distinct message the film was trying to portray, really. Maybe it's something that requires another viewing or two; I have no idea. But my first impression of this movie is that it's just... pointless. It's fluff. It shows that Disney is fine putting out a story about growing up and leaving your toys in the past only to rush right back to them as soon as its nostalgic enough to turn a decent profit. I guess it worked; it performed well at the box office (and, yes, Disney sold me the BD combo pack) and it apparently got a high rating (likely for the sake that it's a group of animated things that resemble the characters you know and love. They felt like hollow shells of themselves, however; lacking anything of substance.

Ultimately, this movie left me with a sour taste in my mouth. The original trilogy were such perfect pieces of storytelling, each serving its purpose, telling unique stories and developing the characters. This one, if anything, undoes that. It's a presentation of these characters for no other reason than that Disney knows we'll buy it again.

I really hope this is the final instalment in the Toy Story series. Anything beyond this will enter into self-parody. It should've ended on the third one, but it didn't, and now we can only hope that this is the last toy story.

It could be another failure for perfect movies but another time they did it very good. Also need to say that the new character was unpredictable and really good.

The movie is well put together but the feeling is just gone in my opinion 4 was simply one too many

And forky was a bad character in my opinion

This movie will delight every Toy Story fan with the humor, heart, characters, and music.

Same old same old since #2. Woody needs to make a kid happy. Another toy is in trouble. Woody struggles to help that toy & also the kid. Buzz, etc help when Woody needs them. Well, somewhat different in this one is that Woody always needs to be told what to do & when to do it by Bo Peep. This is not surprising given Hollywood's current need to portray women as strong & noble and men as weak & nasty. And then there is Gabby, who is alternately sweet(ish) & evil. The only thing more creepy than Gabby are her accomplices. How/why did they decide to make Creepy Story with main themes being emancipation and emasculation?

It was a good movie however as a big buzz fan wish he would have been involved more and less bo beep

THE LOW-DOWN: 24 years ago, Pixar's Toy Story quite literally changed the face of animation as we know it. The film presented an entirely new way of telling a story, bringing characters to life via CGI - pixels over pencils, so to speak. At the same time, Toy Story set a new high standard for storytelling in film, proving conclusively that animated movies aren't just for kids. In the intervening decades, the franchise has even made a strong case in favour of sequels - demonstrating that they're not necessarily soulless cash-grabs. Toy Story 4 is very much a part of that grand tradition. This is smart, soulful, sublime film-making: somehow entertaining and profound all at once.

THE STORY: Sheriff Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) is trying his best to adjust to life with Bonnie (Madeleine McGraw) - the little girl who inherited Andy's beloved childhood toys at the end of Toy Story 3. Even though he's forgotten more often than not, Woody remains intensely focused on Bonnie and her happiness. This means going into full babysitter/bodyguard mode when Bonnie creates Forky (Tony Hale), a spork with twists of wire for hands and clumsy wooden popsicle sticks for feet. As Woody tries to keep the trash-oriented Forky safe, he's swept into an accidental adventure - one in which he meets old friends and learns new truths about who he is and who he has yet to be.

THE GREAT: Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Toy Story 4 is the fact that it feels like the natural, necessary final chapter of a story told in four parts. There's no way that any of this could have been planned when Pixar first introduced us to Woody in 1995, but the progression in both narrative and character development feels utterly organic. Woody has spent the last three films grappling with his existential fear of being lost, forgotten or replaced, from his first meeting with the brash Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) to the day Andy outgrew him and went away to college. This film challenges Woody - and his audiences - to think hard about second chances, about changing how you look at yourself, about finding and embracing a new purpose in life. As such, Toy Story 4 might be the most philosophical movie you'll see this year, in the best possible way.

THE NOT-SO-GREAT: There actually isn't all that much to complain about. The plot machinations can feel a little clunky at times, but Stephany Folsom and Andrew Stanton weave so much joy and humour into their screenplay that the film still zips along. As this is very much Woody's movie, fan-favourite legacy characters like Buzz and Jessie (Joan Cusack) inevitably end up taking a back-seat. Even then, however, they each still get moments to shine. You might find yourself both thoroughly amused and mildly annoyed by the antics of Ducky (Keagan Michael-Key) and Bunny (Jordan Peele), a symbiotic pair of new characters who were clearly inserted into proceedings for comic relief.

FORKING FUNNY: Give it up for Forky, surely the best new animated character of the year. Voiced with a bewildered tenderness by Hale, Forky is a delight - a walking, talking identity crisis created out of one little girl's love and imagination. Even better? With his magnetic attraction to all nearby trash-cans, Forky is a fandom meme just waiting to happen. A close runner-up is daredevil stuntman Duke Caboom, who reportedly owes his ridiculously charming posing and personality to current internet darling Keanu Reeves' commitment to the role. Toy Story 4 even manages to make its main antagonist, Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks), both terrifying and endearing - although there are fewer shades of grey when it comes to her ventriloquist-doll minions, led by the determinedly creepy Benson.

COWBOY BLUES: Ultimately, Toy Story 4 belongs to Woody, and rightfully so. He is this franchise's Captain America, in more ways than one. This film pays loving tribute to Woody's big heart and unwavering, self-effacing loyalty, even as it shakes up his life and world-view when he encounters old friend and possible paramour Bo Peep (Annie Potts) again. (Bo, by the way, is now super-cool and as far away from a fragile damsel-in-distress as anyone can be.) Woody's decisions and revelations about himself will make you weep with the most complex and bittersweet of emotions. There is joy and sorrow here, hope and heartbreak, final farewells and new beginnings, often in the same moment. In other words, it's the stuff of life itself, and it's glorious.

CREDITS WHERE CREDITS ARE DUE: You'll definitely want to stay throughout the credits of the film, which are peppered with closing scenes that are essential to tying up the overarching narrative. At the very end, you'll even be rewarded with a happy ending for one of Toy Story 4's most minor of characters.

RECOMMENDED? In every possible way. Toy Story 4 is a masterpiece of film-making, story-telling and animation. Delightful and devastating in equal measure, it might well be the silliest and most soul-stirring film you'll see this year.

I know time is up to dust off a few gender-driven stereotypes. For that, "Frozen" was a landmark. But there's a fine line between creating new characters and promoting their differences and deconstructing old characters that belong to a whole other storyline in order to promote a difference, that's when I get the feeling that Disney is dangerously toying with its own legacy.

To make myself more specific, I would have no problem with a film centering on a gender exclusive romance and maybe that will be "Frozen II" novelty, but I would have a problem if they made a sequel to "The Fox and the Hound" in order to suggest that there was more than a friendship between Todd and Copper. Watching "Toy Story 4", I felt betrayed by the way the whole relationship between toys and owners, that took a trilogy to be built, was demystified in one single film to shine a light on Disney's 'new order'.

All the previous "Toy Story" movies had a specific story. The first was exploring the psychology of toys within their relationships with their owners. Anyone could relate to that, kids who own toys and adults who used to. It also sealed the friendship between Woody and Buzz, as two of Andy's favorites, not rivals. The second film established the issue of growing up through the Jessie situation and the impeding doom of hormone-driven rejection. Still, Andy and Woody realized that they were not articles among others or valuable items to be worshiped, having ANDY written on their feet was their value and it was perfect while it lasted.

The trilogy ended with the perfect tone (and note), Andy, now grown-up, realizes that the sentimental value of his toys depend on their current utilization as much as their past, so he gives all the toys, including Woody, to Bonnie. For the first time, there's a voluntary separation between the partners, it's an end of era but also a new start. And the toys' "circle of life" has always been about children having toys not toys having children, the song wasn't "I've got a friend in you" after all. In that fourth opus, there's such an obsession with that notion of "having children" that it felt like they were procreating them. I'm not exaggerating, it's used so many times it became a whole overarching theme.

But I didn't have a problem with that because the film started with a rather touching scene. Feeling rejected by Bonnie, Woody follows her in her first day at school and helps her create a new toy, "Forky", I just loved the way the "Spork" came alive on the sole basis that he was considered a toy, and the way Woody felt responsible in a fatherly that wasn't totally out of place in the film's context. Because the motive was still Bonnie: he didn't want her to lose her new toy, Woody was still thinking of his owner, and that's the way all toys behaved, not because that's the way it should be, but because that's the way it was established as soon as the series began.

This is why I just hated the way Woody admitted at the end that he did that because he had nothing else to do, as if toys were supposed to have an existence of their own, and being a lost toy was an option. Woody cared for Bonnie and Forky and it was out of character to describe this as a weakness. But the film constantly shows Woody as a weak character, both morally and physically, and for that, the studios came up with the right contrast: Bo Peep who is of course the incarnation of the Disney heroine, she's brave, bad-ass, perfect, not one ounce of vulnerability and nothing is impossible to her. Meanwhile, Jessie was relegated to a tertiary character while she could have been the female lead after all.

The character of Gabby Gabby was a great addition though, acting like a Disney villain (especially with her scary minions-automatons) but displaying a hidden depth that broke my heart. That Gabby had the potential, but Bo was such a caricature that I could hear the marketing strategy behind her creation "let her awesomeness put Woody to shame" and she did a great job at that. Naturally, she's proud of not "having children" which seems to associate parenting with a form of commitment a girl should be proud to reject. Quite hypocritical from a studio whose main audiences aren't seniors.

Now, maybe I'm overanalyzing, but when you also have two toys who insist on "having children" since they've been "waiting for three years" and they're males, it's of course a nod to the right for adoption, which draws the obvious parallel between belonging to children and having children. Which says in subtext, women shouldn't make raising families a priority but it's clearly one for those who've been denied this right. The message isn't wrong but just off-topic in the context of a series where a/ toys have always been the possessed ones not the possessors, b/ when the possession was a mark of friendship and nothing else and c/ when viewers could relate to owners, even from the toys' perspective. By over-humanizing them to make them timely relevant, something of the series' charm was lost.

My view is rather conservative but only in the sense that I wished the spirit of "Toy Story" to be conserved the way it was in the first three films, I enjoy a progressive film like anyone, but I wish Disney could do that with new characters, not with series whose arcs were perfectly closed. But I think I see where they're coming from, they're probably preparing a spin-off prequel that will center on Bo Peep, so maybe "Toy Story 4" is only a vehicle for her. Ironic that in the film, it's a skunk.

There's going to be people who are going to hate Toy Story 4. It's pathetic that people go to the movies wanting to hate this movie and that every time they see a flaw, they're going to talk about it too much, and bring out the film as if it would be bad. We're here. It's definitely not a perfect movie. When was the last time we saw a flawless animated film. For my part, it never happened. In the first few weeks, people will love the film but the more the weeks go on, the more bad reviews will come out. That's what happened with Incredibles 2. For those who will pay to go trash against the movie, try to enjoy all the excellent moments that Toy Story 4 offers us. I've always been a fan of the trilogy and when I knew they were going to make a fourth film, I was a bit worried but I didn't think it was going to be terrible and when I went to the movies I wanted to love the film. In the end, I adored it. Josh Cooley has demonstrated that he loves the trilogy and the characters. A few people will say that they were missing minutes on screen for several characters but we had a lot in the last film. Directing, cinematography and animation for this movie was arguably the best of the Toy Story films. The pacing wasn't quite perfect and at one point it looked episodic but it was a film with beautiful morals and very touching moments. The first 40 minutes or so were more than excellent. The ending (without spoilers) was sad but not as much as Toy Story 3. Yet it was heartbreaking. It's the funniest Toy Story movie from my point of view. The villain was very well written and her acolytes were scary. Forky was hilarious. Tom Hanks vocal performance was his best. All in all, the movie is really great and it is my favorite movie of the year so far. For haters, enjoy the film and do not try to put everything on small details.

Out of all the Toy Story movies in the whole franchise, I consider this the best one ever! Especially, the whole point of the movie, it's about listening to your inside voice. Biggest milestone since the mid-1990s.

Toy story was special because of the bonding between the toys themselves and between them and Andy. Now that they are with Bonnie, you'd expect to get that same feeling. It did not develop. In contrast, she bonded with Forkie and the gang was an excessory.