The Triumph of "Toy Story 3"

When I set off for college, well over a decade ago now, I left a certain toy rabbit, who shall remain nameless, behind in my bedroom closet. I tried to get by without him. I really did. But after a few weeks of a new roommate with some interesting emotional issues, strained ties with old friends, and a good bout of homesickness, I asked my mother to send the old fuzzie along with the next care package. Since then, he's found his way back to the bedroom closet, but he is not forgotten.

So, sentimental schmuck that I am, of course I got all teary-eyed at "Toy Story 3," which is as good a film as PIXAR has ever made and a great ending to the "Toy Story" series. I know expectations couldn't be higher, but somehow PIXAR did it again. They went in directions I never dreamed they'd be willing to take the movie, and even to some darker places that might upset the youngest members of the audience. The PIXAR films aren't afraid of evoking mixed and difficult emotions, which is why their films tend to provoke such strong reactions from its viewers. There are a few humorous winks to the grown-ups here and there, but they never undercut the significance of the story's major themes.

The eleven-year wait since "Toy Story 2" seemed to last forever, but it was necessary in way. In that time, the toys' owner, Andy (John Morris), grew up from a little boy to a seventeen-year-old about to leave home for college, and suddenly the years don't seem quite so long at all. The fates of Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), Cowboy Woody (Tom Hanks), and all the other familiar playthings are suddenly up in the air. Will they be placed in storage in the attic? Donated to a day care center? Or – gasp – thrown away? Woody is especially conflicted, wanting to stay loyal to Andy's wishes, even if means going into storage, while his friends aren't so sure. The stakes are higher than they've ever been, and there's real dramatic tension from the outset. Much of the audience has known and loved these characters for fifteen years. PIXAR wouldn't really let anything bad happen to them, would they? Would they?!

It's so easy to lose yourself in this movie, and get swept up in the toys' newest and most perilous adventure. For all its heartstring-tugging dramatics and unabashed sentiment, "Toy Story 3," like the previous installments, is a great big action movie, and easily the best one of the summer so far. The opening fantasy sequence is a wonderful Western spoof, and there are later set pieces that recall disaster movies, prison breaks, and just a little bit of Stygian horror. The humor is also as good as ever. There are lots of sublimely funny moments, like Buzz discovering his Spanish settings and Timothy Dalton's voice coming out of a stuffed hedgehog. There was no shortage of pop-culture references either, mostly involving clever riffs on older classics like "The Great Train Robbery" and "The Great Escape."

Due to circumstances I will not spoil, Buzz and Woody and the rest of the gang are brought to Sunnyside Daycare, where they meet a whole new pack of toy characters. Fans of the series might remember the rumors that the third "Toy Story" film would end with all of Andy's toys being donated to a local kindergarten, where there would always be new children to play with them. It sounds like the perfect new home, but all is not what it appears at Sunnyside, especially under the rule of Lotso (Ned Beatty), a magenta teddy-bear with an unhappy past and a serious grumpy streak. Other new characters include a very metrosexual Ken doll (Michael Keaton), an ancient Fisher Price Chatter Telephone (Teddy Newton), a creepy one-eyed Big Baby doll, and the morose Chuckles the Clown (Bud Luckey), whose visual design alone had me cracking up. There are dozens of others, who will need more than one viewing to properly appreciate.

And of course just about all the old favorites are back, including Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head (Don Rickles and Estelle Harris), Hamm the piggy bank (John Ratzenberger), Slinky Dog (Blake Clark, filling in for the departed Jim Varney) Jessie (Joan Cusack) and her horse Bullseye, Rex the dinosaur (Wallace Shawn), a Barbie doll (Jodi Benson), and a trio of those squeaky three-eyed aliens from Pizza Planet. But unlike other franchise films, "Toy Story 3" takes a moment to acknowledge that several are missing – Bo Peep, Wheezy the Penguin, the Etch-a-Sketch – lost to yard sales and the landfill over the years. It adds additional weight to the toys' fears of an uncertain future, and shows an attention to detail and commitment to these characters by the creators that is extraordinary.

"Toy Story 3" is not perfect. Lotso is a little too reminiscent of Stinky Pete, the villain of "Toy Story 2," and some of the jokes, like Buzz Lightyear's recurring bouts of amnesia, are well-worn even with the new variations. However, these are minor complaints about a film that really surpassed all the expectations I had for it. While I thought "Shrek Forever After" was a fairly decent way to end the "Shrek" series, "Toy Story 3" is in another league entirely. This is a film that was clearly conceived to say goodbye to the franchise permanently, where big changes occur and we know as the credits roll that nothing will ever be the same for any of the characters again. It is my favorite PIXAR film since "The Incredibles," and there are a few moments that rank among the best pieces of cinema to ever come out of the studio.

In a summer of sequels, I'm glad we have at least one example of a franchise that did it right and is going out on a very, very high note.