Since the premiere of Toy Story in 1995, Pixar has set the precedent for how animated films can and should be made, thanks to visually dazzling fare that’s filled with surface-level delights for young’uns and foundational messages about humanity for everyone else.
As successful as that formula has been for the writers, directors, animators, and code crunchers at the Disney subsidiary, Pixar’s reputation has also threatened to paint them into a corner—particularly when they go back to the well for sequels to their most lucrative films. How can Pixar continue a peerless run, without turning on autopilot or trumpeting the same themes in movie after movie?
The Toy Story franchise is the best example of how Pixar has avoided those pitfalls. At their core, each is about the adventures of a gaggle of charming kids’ playthings, but as the franchise has carried on, the ideas underpinning those high jinks have gotten richer and darker: By Toy Story 3, the first Toy Story‘s simple message of tolerance became, in part, an exploration of accepting death. (Who could forget that harrowing, beautiful scene of Woody, Buzz, and the gang holding hands as they stared down the fiery maw of an incinerator?)
The fourth—and most likely final—installment eases up a bit, with a much simpler theme of not being afraid to grow up. That’s the challenge facing Bonnie, the little girl who was gifted all of these toys, as she takes her first steps into a kindergarten classroom. But with a little help from Woody, she makes a new friend: Forky, a spork with glued-on googly eyes, popsicle sticks for feet, and a pipe cleaner for arms. This strange crafts project (voiced by Tony Hale, aka Buster from Arrested Development) becomes Bonnie’s new favorite plaything—which means Woody must protect and mentor this bundle of nervous energy, which only wants to return to the trash from whence it came.
Toy Story 4’s screenwriters—a sizable team that includes Rashida Jones and Martin Hynes—take this story into some of the strangest corners of the Pixar universe, including an antique store dominated by a sinister doll (Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks) and her immensely creepy ventriloquist dummy lackies, and an underground network of lost toys that includes a preening French Canadian Evel Knievel knockoff (Keanu Reeves, hilarious) and Woody’s old flame Bo Peep (Annie Potts).</p
Naturally, there are laughs—the majority provided by a conjoined, stuffed duck/bunny voiced by Key and Peele—but through it all, first-time director Josh Cooley returns to the same resounding note: Don’t fear the future.
Looked at from another angle, there’s a darker reading of Toy Story 4: The entire film could be looked at as a farewell to John Lasseter, the founder of Pixar and the former head of Disney’s animation department, who was publicly ousted in 2017 after numerous complaints of sexual misconduct. (He does receive a story credit for this film.) Through that lens, Toy Story 4 almost feels like a promise that, going forward, Cooley and the rest of Pixar will take care of these films, their characters, and their stories. Lasseter doesn’t deserve such niceties, but this solid, entertaining film shows that, even without his input, Pixar will be just fine.