Sunday, July 4, 2010

Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3 is a stand out this summer. As a general rule sequels are worse than the original. Additionally three-quils are usually abysmal. This summer, however, we have a few rule breakers. Eclipse was phenomenal more on that one to come after I see it a second time tomorrow. Toy Story 3 was perhaps even better than the first one.

The story goes like this: Andy is all grown up now and heading to college. He has to decide what to do with his old toys. Through a series of movie misunderstandings the toys end up at Sunnyvale Day Care center. Here we meet some really fun new toys, like Ken. Sunnyvale turns out not to be the utopia everyone thought it would be so they have to escape from there and they end up at a dump. After some terrifying dump adventures they make their way back towards Andy's house. Sounds pretty basic right?

The beauty of this story lies in letting go. I truly believe that this story was made for a more mature audience. The original toy story debuted 15 years ago and this movie was definitely intended for those early viewers. We have grown up, our days are no longer filled with creating complex stories for our toys to act out. We have magazines and iphones and texting to occupy ourselves. It is time to let go of our old selves and embrace maturity. It is so easy to wax nostalgic about the easy times, before we got involved in a thousand extra-curricular activities and forgot about our inanimate best friends.

Parents should use caution when taking children to this movie. The Pixar label does not always indicate a movie for children. Younger children will enjoy the colors and the cartoons and may laugh at some of the physical comedy. Children who are more aware may be frightened by a good portion of this film. A young boy sitting behind me in the theater was quite petrified and wanted to leave the theater. There is a very creepy baby doll, monkey and clown that quite honestly even freaked me out a little. Parents should also know that the end of this film will make you cry. I literally boohooed like a little girl at the film's conclusion. But don't get me wrong here, if you like the toy story genre this film is for you. The story feels authentic and the scenes are fantastically created. I think I liked it even better than the first film, and certainly better than the second.

No comments:

Post a Comment