Lightyear

This is a funny spinoff with suspense and heart, a captivatingly spirited toon take on splashy live-action retro popcorn entertainment. The title character is given splendid voice by Chris Evans, balancing heroism and human fallibility with infectious warmth.

One side effect of a tagalong project like Lightyear is that even while the movie is rightly being shrugged off as another reheat, moments of real artistry will get overlooked. The animation in this Toy Story-adjacent adventure is astounding; with each new movie, the studio advances the art form in incremental ways.

It’s nice to know that Team Pixar can still recognize the importance of fun. Though Lightyear isn’t as funny as the original “Toy Story,” nor as emotionally potent as “Toy Story 2,” and hence probably won’t be rewatched nearly as many times as those two classics, it’s a plucky and rousing little sci-fi saga.

Had there been more to Lightyear than a retread of sci-fi cliches with a beloved character, I would have been less disappointed.

Following Pixar’s two most refreshing releases in years, “Luca” and “Turning Red,” both of which were deemed unworthy of a full theatrical release, it’s difficult not to perceive “Lightyear” as a far less compelling and safe bet. How tiresome it is that most studio productions must now exist as part of a larger multiverse in order to merit exposure. In the end, “Lightyear” reveals that today, given Disney’s business model, “to infinity and beyond” really only means to the inevitable sequel.

Rather than play like a significant departure from the “Toy Story” films that spawned it, Lightyear instead emerges as a disappointing runner-up, capturing but a fraction of the comedy, thrills and poignancy of its predecessors.

For perhaps the first time in the studio’s canon, every idea in this ‘origin story’ of the Toy Story astronaut feels woefully half-baked.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

A visually polished and intermittently thrilling sci-fi adventure that expands Buzz’s mythology with ambition and heart, yet struggles to balance its surprisingly somber themes with the lighter charm audiences might expect.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

First the purely awful - woke Disney at its finest here. A black, lesbian giving birth to a child with no father even in the movie, IN SPACE? LOL. What a complete joke. They seriously had to include this smut into a Toy Story spinoff flick? Not cool, Disney. Not cool. If you think your woke crap is actually fun to watch, it isn't. The movie itself is enjoyable for one watch, but it's pretty underwhelming for Disney/Pixar. Maybe if they didn't focus so much on woke crap then they would have made another great film, but nooooo. We have to have wokeism here. What does stand out as superb is in the 4k version. The colors are absolutely beautiful on a nice OLED screen, and the HDR/lighting/contrast is just amazing. Disney/Pixar films do look incredible in 4k on a OLED (not a regular 4k LED). If you can get past the woke crap in this movie there is a decent film to be had, but you'll probably not watch it ever again. 6.5 for the movie, 0 for the woke filth smut that exists here. Averages out to be a 3.25

Disney woke rubbish ruins an already bad film. I feel that along with age ratings for sex and violence in movies, they should have standards to adhere to for the social propoganda they try to force on to our children. I think we should be able to decide whether to put the movie studios in charge of our children's upbringing or not. We don't need to confuse our kids any more than they already are with all the new demands placed on them to navigate in modern times. We want to be entertained at the movies not educated.