Review of Toy Story 4 (2019) by Brunovn00 — 25 Jun 2019

Toy Story 4 is a movie no one asked for because I think pretty much everyone agrees that this franchise should've stayed as a trilogy, but...I'm really impressed with this movie.

Not talking about the stunning visual effects and animation, something that's expected from Pixar, but the story, the writing, the new characters...There's so much to like here. The story, while it reuses some elements from previous movies, it never feels like a total rehash like I expected and it's funny, entertaining and pretty emotional and even unexpected at points. The writing was notably better than the one in Toy Story 3, with some great dialogue and hilarious humor, like there's no more "Racist spanish stereotype Buzz" joke all the jokes are great and creative and believe me, this was a really fun experience. The pacing is fluid and great as the movie moves forward constantly and basically everything shown on screen serves a purpose to the plot, there's no filler, which is something common in modern mainstream animated movies...I guess.

I hear some criticism about the emotional moments, that they feel "forced" like the movie really tries hard to make you cry or feel something and I really don't see that, the emotional bits have a purpose and never feel forced or melodramatic, they work pretty well giving the context and theme of the movie.

The new cast of characters are really funny, charismatic and memorable, this is shocking for a Pixar sequel because it's common that you don't even remember the names of the new characters because of how boring they are, but here, it's not the case and I was worried that Bo Peep would turn into some forced cheap feminist propaganda but that wasn't the case. The villain was surprisingly good, is better than Lotso, and has a lot of depth behind its motivation, I honestly was satisfied with the way the villain was developed in the movie.

The themes this movie tackles are simple but effective to make an impact and to make the audience get something from this movie. Trying to say the themes might be spoiling the movie, but rest assure that the themes explored in this movie differ from what we have seen in the franchise before. This isn't your typical Pixar sequel where pretty much everything ends up the same as it started, because this movie really has a notable impact in the franchise.

Some of my minor criticisms are with the rest of the characters, like a lot of returning characters are wasted or have very little screentime or almost no impact in the story but the fact that the movie decides to focus in the journey and development of a certain group of characters, then I'm actually okay with that.

It seems that Pixar actually cared for this movie, I'm so happy that this movie turned out to be good and living up to the standards of quality set by the previous movies. This is honestly the best animated movie of 2019 so far.

Go watch it, don't be biased by the fact that this is the fourth movie of a franchise that should've stayed in a trilogy, this is an amazing film and I would definetely see it again.