Toy Story 4 Turns Trash into Fun

Toy Story 4 (2019)

Toy Story 4 is another in a line of unnecessary sequels that nobody asked for. Toy Story 4 had the same affect as Cars 3. Disney wanted to sell more toys, directed Pixar to make the movie, and somehow a very watchable product was created. Toy Story 4 follows our first adventure with the old gang under their new kid, Bonnie. Bonnie goes to kindergarten orientation and makes a new toy out of garbage named Forky (even though he is a spork). Forky is a rehash of the first Toy Story’s Buzz Lightyear character. He doesn’t know he is a toy and tries to escape the toy life as Woody does his best to corral him. The major difference is that Buzz thought he was real and Forky thinks he is trash, which he is, so he is constantly trying to get into garbage bins, which is played out for some legitimately funny moments. But, just like Buzz, Forky does escape and Woody and the gang try to get everyone back to their kid. In the process, Woody reconnects with an old flame, Bo Peep and the rest of the movie is a “will they?-won’t they?” between Woody and Bo as they navigated between a bunch of Deus Ex Machina moments to return Forky to Bonnie. It was a fine movie, bordering on good, but it doesn’t carry the emotional weight nor the constant theme of friendship that the previous Toy Story movies had. The first Toy Story was about accepting somebody new and being a good friend, even in times of change. Toy Story 2 was about making hard choices to be a good friend and that friends are there for each other. Toy Story 3 was about growing apart from friends, but still carrying them in your heart. Toy Story 4 did not have that one message that stood out. It was a battle between several messages that sometimes contradict each other. There was a little of the accepting somebody new, there was some forcing somebody to change to fit another’s needs (not very on brand), there was a humanitarian message about helping more than just one person and sharing your friendship, and then the message that was most prevalent was that even the best of us can be replaced by garbage. While the core of the movie was by far the most shallow of the Toy Story movies, the new characters were all great. Key and Peele as two stuffed animals attached to each other were delightful and consistently funny. Keanu Reeves continued his run of being America’s darling by being the Canadian version of Evel Knievel. And the antagonist had an army of horrifying ventriloquist dummies at her beck and call. I will never understand how those are allowed to exist and how they were meant for children’s entertainment. The addition of new characters was the strongest aspect of Toy Story 4. These new characters were enough to catapult Toy Story 4 out of the realm of Cars 2 and into the level of Cars 3 and Monsters University as a serviceable sequel that is watchable, but completely unneeded. I still enjoyed Toy Story 4 and give it 4.5 trillion out of 5.88 trillion miles in a light year.