Toy Story 5 Review

Toy Story 5 Review

Woody, Buzz, and the rest of the toys are back for another adventure in Toy Story 5 and this time they’re battling technology. The main line Toy Story franchise is one of the most consistent film franchises of all time. The first four films are fantastic, so the fifth installment had a lot of shoes to fill. Did they fill the shoes? Is this another hit for the Toy Story franchise? Let’s talk about it!

The Good

Simply put, Toy Story 5 still has some of the magic and the charm that the franchise has been known for. This is another fun, funny, and heartwarming addition to the franchise. Ever Toy Story 4 released and even prior to that film coming out, there’s been a lot of debate as to whether the franchise should’ve ended with the third film. I love Toy Story 4, so I think it’s necessary. Toy Story 5 isn’t really meant to provide a definitive ending to the franchise the way Toy Story 3 and Toy Story 4 did. That doesn’t make the movie bad by any means because it’s still a fun adventure with characters that you like and they found this unexplored aspect of the franchise which is technology. The film is this battle between the toys and technology and touching on these ideas of technology taking over play time and the toys being concerned about playtime being taken away and its themes and ideas that feel relevant to 2026 as there’s a rise in technology and they play out that using our favorite batch of toys and it’s another fun adventure for them to go on. It fits in with the franchise and what’s established, but it also comments on relevant ideas. I’m not a parent but I could see this film being a good conversation piece for many parents who are dealing with their kids on technology for most of the day and losing their imagination and wanting to play with toys. 

The big thing that works about this film is you have Jessie front and center in the film. This is Jessie’s story where she’s the lead character, she has the character arc, and she’s the driving force that’s trying to fix everything. I was a little bit curious as to how they would make Jessie the lead character work. And what they did wisely was tying it back to some of the ideas in Toy Story 2 and exploring Jessie’s backstory. And they tie into the trauma and the sadness that she felt, into her perspective on technology and why she doesn’t trust it. Because we’ve now spent four films with Jessie and we get that incredible sequence in Toy Story 2, the audience can 100% understand where she’s coming from and why she’s making certain choices. This film only could’ve been told later in the franchise as we’ve spent more time with the characters and gotten to know and understand them. Another reason I think making Jessie the lead character works is that it doesn’t undo the ending of Toy Story 4. Toy Story 4 ended with Woody growing and separating himself from the others (he didn’t abandon them). I think had they made Woody the lead of this film, it wouldn’t have worked and it would’ve undone the ending of the earlier film. By having Woody as a side character, it justifies its existence and has Woody along for the adventure. It makes the film feel fresh and different with it having a new lead character. 

Continuing the character side of things, the rest of the characters besides Jessie in the film are a ton of fun. Of course, Woody and Buzz are just one of Hollywood’s most iconic duos. They’re just as fun and as chaotic as you expect them to be, Tom Hanks and Tim Allen are fantastic together. I just talked about Woody and his place in the film, but it was refreshing to get a new lead character and seeing Woody in a different role. One of the things that I’m very curious to see how people respond to is how they handle Buzz in the film. The trailers sort of tease what they’re doing with Buzz and having multiple Buzz Lightyear running around. But they do other stuff that was kept from the trailers that is a call back to Toy Story 3. I liked what they did with Buzz, and I thought it added to the film and connected to some of the ideas that the film is exploring and what it's about. I thought it was a fun direction to take Buzz on and have fun with him. The fun standout is Conan O’Brien as Smarty Pants who is this potty-training machine. He gets all the best laughs in the movie that had my audience laughing out the most. It helps that Conan is just a very funny guy and I’m curious how much of his lines were improvised and how much of them scripted. His character is the reason the film is rated PG instead of G like the earlier four. There’s a lot of potty jokes in the film because of him. I thought they worked and caught a laugh out of me. 

As it is a Pixar film, you must talk about the heart and the emotions of the film. In an interview, Tom Hanks said that the most emotional scene of the franchise is in this movie that involves Bonnie and text messages. I don’t think it’s the most emotional scene of the franchise, but I get what he’s talking about. 

They incorrupt these ideas of cyber bullying into the mix and that’s able to evoke some of the big emotions of the film. There’re multiple scenes in the middle of the film that involve Jessie and her mission in this film that really hit the emotional gut punch. I don’t want to spoil anything, but if you’ve seen the film, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Just in typical Pixar fashion, the film can evoke these big emotions and make you feel a lot of things. Going back to what I said earlier, but the reason Jessie works as the lead character is because we’ve spent a lot of time with her. You can connect that statement back to the heart and emotions of the film, where when certain moments happen you know what you’re supposed to be feeling because it's the fifth film in the franchise and we’ve spent so many hours and time with these characters and falling in love with them. It’s one of the things that Pixar does best, drawing out these big emotions from the audience. 

Finally, I appreciated that the film wasn’t really trying to have a big emotionally satisfying conclusion to the franchise like the third and fourth film did. But rather, the film just wanted to have an emotionally satisfying conclusion to the film itself and Jessie’s story. I appreciated that the film was smaller in scale and not trying to be the next emotionally satisfying conclusion. Because I think it would’ve been very weird to have three movies back-to-back to back that end on this note of closing out the franchise. This movie is going to print money so I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a Toy Story 6 down the line and this movie doesn’t completely close the door on a sixth film happening. 

The Bad

While there is a lot to praise and love about this film, I do think this is the weakest of the Toy Story films and the film with the messiest script. To be fair, I am still going to be positive on the film, it’s not a bad script or a bad movie but it is flawed. The big thing here is I felt like there were a few laps in the logic of how certain things played out. It felt like the film was having to cut corners to make certain things happen. This is most prevalent in the third act and how they set up the third act and all of the moving pieces, I get what they were going for and it makes sense but there’s a number of things where you sort of go “wait a minute, how does that work”, or those moments where there’s multiple things that have to lineup at just the right moment in order for certain things to happen. It’s not that these are big issues that drastically pulled me out of the film. But when you have a franchise that is very consistent with four earlier great movies with great scripts that don’t have these sorts of issues, it’s a little bit frustrating and disappointing when this film does have those issues.

Also, the franchise has always had moments where the toys do things without the human characters seeing them, or they’ll do things that make the human characters think that another human did something. For example, in the original Toy Story Andy thinks that Woody and Buzz are lost, and then to Andy they suddenly appear in a box in the third act and Andy assumes that his mom found them. This movie has that, but I think here it’s taken to a much higher degree and really strains some credibility as to how Bonnie or her parents aren’t figuring out weird stuff is happening with the toys and technology and not really questioning anything. There’re definitely a few moments where it does strain credibility that didn’t really work for me. 

Finally, the director of the film Andrew Stanton said that the first draft of the film didn’t include Woody because he wanted to see if the franchise can work without him. Watching the film, I think you can see that there was a version of this film that didn’t have Woody in it. That’s not to say that Woody’s usage in the film is bad, or that it is 100% unnecessary. But I think knowing that going into the film changes your perspective on Woody’s place in the film. I think that does make you question, could this movie have worked without Woody? I think there’s a version of this film that could’ve. That’s not me trashing on Woody as a character, I love Woody and I love Tom Hanks. But it is something that I noticed watching the film. 

Final Thoughts: Overall, I really dug Toy Story 5. It’s not as fresh as some of the other ones. It is certainly the most flawed film of the bunch, that does hold it back. But overall, fans are really going to enjoy this film. There are some interesting ideas and talking points to be had with this film with the relationship between children and technology. It has the fun moments and the heart, see this movie if you’re a Toy Story fan. 

The Score: 8.8/10 (B+)