Toy Story 3

What: Toy Story 3
Where: Nuneaton Odeon
Who: Me, Becky & Mark
When: Sunday July 25th 2010 at 8pm

An impromptu trip to the cinema for the second time in a week saw me rack up nearly 2500 points on my premier card. Meaning that so far this year I have spent almost £250 in the cinema not surprising when you consider that this film alone cost me an extortionate £10.35. Yes you heard that correctly as once again I got sucked into the hype surrounding the third dimension and again I was left disappointed with the effect as once again it is not needed not worth it and not very good.

That is the only time I will be using the phrase “not very good” in this review because Toy Story 3 is very good and is equal in quality to its 2 predecessors. In 1995 the original Toy Story came along and provided a bench mark for all computer generated animation that would follow and there has been a lot. Have any of them matched up to Toy Story? It’s a debateable point but in my humble opinion no. Toy Story was the first full length computer animated feature and to this day is still the best. A few years after Toy story the all star cast reunited and in 1999 Toy story 2 was released to critical acclaim and to this day still sits in IMDBs top 250 films of all time. Not bad for a sequel. And then it just stopped. The Toy Story franchise was buried and inferior quality product started cropping up all over the place. So can you imagine the excitement that surrounded Pixar when they announced that Toy Story was alive and well and more importantly was back.

To get a cast as good as the Toy Story line-up back together is quite an achievement and apart from the late great Jim Varney (slinky dog) every single one of them returned to provide voices for Toy Story 3. Even the now 26 year old John Morris (Andy) who hasn’t worked on any move since Toy Story 2.

So is this film any good? The simple answer to that is, yes it is. It is easily equal to the 2 originals and in years to come will not feel out of place in the trilogy. It is not better and it is in no way worse it just feels like it fits in and it brings the whole Toy Story franchise full circle and now the story feels complete. This film will make you laugh (a lot) it will scare you, If that monkey and that creepy as hell big baby doesn’t scare the pants of you you’re not human. And it will probably make you cry. If you are prone to crying at films then make sure you take a box of tissues with you because when this film is leading up too its inevitable conclusion you are going to need them.

Again I can’t really give a stand out performance in this film but I can tell you who to watch out for and the show stealer in this film is Ken (Michael Keaton). Barbies long time love interest is a camp show off who is easily led due to his hang ups about being a girls toy, it is a perfectly written brilliantly well done character and along with the usual favourites fits perfectly well in to the Toy Story world.

In summary this film is a great conclusion to the Toy Story story and like I said earlier it doesn’t feel hooked on or out of place which is probably the highest praise I can give this film. Don’t watch it in 3d, to be perfectly honest I’m getting very close to just telling you to boycott 3d all together, but do watch it! You owe to all the toys in your life that you don’t own any more.

8.5/10