“‘Toy Story 5’ – do we need it?” asked Deborah Ross in The Spectator. It’s been 31 years since the first film came out, and “one worries for the narrative integrity of characters when an IP is thrashed to death like this”.
The latest instalment, however, does at least bring the franchise up to date by addressing one of the “pressing dilemmas of modern childhood”: screen time, and whether it will be the end of toys (“Extinction… Not again!” cries Rex, the dinosaur).
‘Delicious touches’
Our favourite toys still belong to Bonnie, but while Bonnie loves them still, all the other eight-year-olds now play in the digital world. To help her make friends, her parents grudgingly buy her a frog-themed tablet called Lilypad. It does not, however, go to plan: Bonnie not only gets hooked on Lilypad (Greta Lee), she ends up being cyberbullied via it. So the toys contact Woody (Tom Hanks), who left Bonnie’s room at the end of ‘Toy Story 4’, to ask for his help.
The film contains some “delicious” touches – Woody now has a bald spot and a paunch – and it is “superb” to look at – but it does all “feel a little generic”.
‘Loses its nerve’
The plot is “amazingly timely”, said Nicholas Barber on BBC Culture, and may be a bit “triggering” for some parents: this is the only Pixar cartoon that dwells on a child being “crushingly lonely”. But compared with the “peerless” first three films, it is short on good jokes, and heavy on subplots: one of them, about 50 Buzz Lightyear toys making their way across the country, could have been scrapped altogether.
The film also “loses its nerve with its own big idea”, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian: the “creepy” tablet turns out to be capable of “self-sacrificial heroism”. “Really? At least Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear, the villain from ‘TS3’, had the courage of his evil convictions.”