Toy Story 4 (2019)

Director: Josh Cooley Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Tony Hale, Annie Potts, Christina Hendricks, Keanu Reeves

As Bonnie starts kindergarten, Woody tries his upmost to protect   new friend Forky, a spork toy handmade by Bonnie herself on her first day. As the gang sets off on a road trip, Woody’s task becomes harder until he finds himself lost in an unfamiliar town, racing to get back to the others before they leave him behind. On the way, he meets some new friends, new enemies, and some old familiar faces too.

While a fourth Toy Story film may not have been totally necessary or even highly desired by many fans, I cannot stress enough that this instalment is 100% worth a watch. The third film sort of ties up the over-arching storyline, but this one builds on it well and works well as a continuation of that plot. Basically, in case you were wondering about whether you should bother with this film or not: you should.

I found this one to be the funniest of all four Toy Story movies. Forky is hilarious and it’s great to see a slightly different type of toy and how they made him into a character. Buzz has the best lines, and while he’s not in the film as much as I’d like (it’s heavily weighted towards Woody), he pretty much makes every scene he’s in. Keanu Reeves also makes an appearance- well, his voice does- as new friend Duke Caboom, who also has some of the most hysterical moments. I think I laughed out loud along with the rest of the cinema probably a good dozen times.

As I mentioned, the movie is pretty heavily weighted towards Woody and the rest of the original gang aren’t in it too much. I would have liked to see more of Woody and Buzz’s friendship, which, ultimately, is kind of the whole concept of the Toy Story franchise. More of the originals- Rex, Slinky et al- would also have played to my deep-seated nostalgia. The new characters are great though, and they all come together at the end in a satisfying way. With the new faces, they all have substantial background stories which are woven in satisfactorily, so they fit in well and don’t feel like random additions to an already large set of characters. As for the plot itself, it’s a lovely adventure with moments of comedy, sadness, suspense, action as well as a couple of good jump scares (the antiques store is creeeeepy). It all flows at a good pace with pretty much no lulls, and it all wraps up well in the end with no plot holes that I can think of.

The million dollar question is: will there be a fifth Toy Story? My two cents would be that while it’s not necessary, I didn’t think this one was necessary either but I loved it nonetheless. If they do make another one I’m confident it’ll be brilliant, just like all the others. I feel like Toy Story never needs much plugging, but I would 100% recommend this as one of those films you’ll come out of just thinking “yes, that was great”.

5 stars

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Director: Henry Selick Cast: Chris Sarandon, Danny Elfman, Catherine O’Hara, Ed Ivory, Ken Page, William Hickey, Glenn Shadix

The Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, Jack Skellington, becomes tired of doing the same thing every year for Halloween. He stumbles across Christmas Town and is taken in my its magic, and decides to take Christmas into his own hands this year. However, it doesn’t go quite to plan and he needs Santa to save the day.

It’s one month until Christmas everybody!!! And that means I’m back onto my annual Christmas Crackers series- which in 2016 included a grand total of one whole review, so if I can beat that I’m doing a good job. Anyway, I thought I’d start with A Nightmare Before Christmas as, to be honest, it’s pretty early in the year to go full-scale Christmas so this Halloween/Christmas crossover is a good compromise.

As far as Christmas films go this one’s not really particularly Christmassy, which was a bit of a let down, but like I say it’s still early so I’m willing to let that slide. Plus, if you usually hate sickly-sweet Christmas films then maybe this one’s for you. I did enjoy it and it’s not too Tim Burton-esque compared to some of his other seriously weird stuff (he was the writer for this), in that it’s not hugely creepy or sinister, which does certainly make it for family appropriate for this time of year. The animations are very cool, and there are lots of little details with the characters and the sets which are fun to spot. Plot-wise it’s fairly predictable, but it’s not very long and it kind of makes a nice change to not have too much squashed into one film. The blossoming romance between Jack and Sally is a little forced towards the end and the plot would have worked without the romantic angle- but still, it’s a festive film to you kind of need something like that. But really the film is about the animation and design, which is top-notch.

I liked this more than I thought I would and it works as a family film as it’s not quite scary enough to put off kids. It’s worth a watch as it’s fun and a bit different from your usual Christmas film, but just don’t save it until Christmas Eve.

3 stars