To some people, the continuation of the Toy Story saga after part 3 was an uncrossable line worthy of the overwhelmingly needless fourth Indiana Jones film. However, while that epic trilogy capper admittedly gave us a perfect final act for Woody, Buzz, Jessie and the gang, Toy Story 4 was nowhere near the act of cinematic blasphemy as some insisted and in fact had a great deal to add to the series once the idea of the franchise continuing lost its initial shock.
Well, we’re now up to our fifth Toy Story film which now means that once more, the good people at Pixar have to convince us all over again that it’s worth dragging these guys out of the toy box all over again for another adventure. However, if we were to look at the franchise as phases, it actually makes perfect sense that we’re back in the saddle, because with the Andy era of the films firmly in our rear view, it’s time to continue ever further into the age of Bonnie. But with it’s fifth offering, could it be that we have the most philosophical Toy Story of all?
Sensing that her large imagination and willingness to play has made her something of a social outcast, painfully shy, 8 year-old Bonnie is bought a tablet by her well-meaning parents in order to help her make friends. This horrifies her toys, now led by cowgirl Jessie, who is still carrying a truckload of abandonment trauma from her first owner, Emily. Rumours are abound that the rise of technology in the home is leading to a mass abandonment of toys everywhere as children seem to be growing up too fast and putting away childish things all the more sooner. But their fears are confirmed when the overconfident tablet – named Lilypad – seems to think that she can give Bonnie everything the cluster of anxious toys can’t, including finding her owner new friends.
In a moment of panic, Jessie reaches out to Woody for advice, who still lives out in the wilderness looking after abandoned toys with Bo Peep and Duke Kaboom. But while the years are starting to mount up for the cowboy doll, he still takes this as an invitation to return to Bonnie’s house and try and take charge. Due to the usual, farcical shenanigans that tend to befall these characters, Jessie and Bullsye are accidently taken to Emily’s old residence where a new family now live, but while she ends up having to team up with some disused examples of tech to get home, Woody and Buzz resume their old rivalry while trying to figure out how to unplug Lily for good.
However, while Bonnie’s intrest in play is dropping alarmingly and Jessie is hanging all her hopes on a GPS receiver, a digital camera and a potty training device named Smarty Pants, a rather strange occurrence has begun on a deserted island which sees a company of shipwrecked, next generation, Buzz Lightyear toys suddenly come on-line and start an epic journey that’ll take them from the middle of the ocean to beyond…
Some might argue that the central theme of Toy Story 5 – a existential struggle for relevance – might echo the fight every subsequent sequel after Toy Story 3 has to overcome: the fact of whether or not it’s actually needed. While the surprisingly strong Toy Story 4 took some big swings in order to justify it’s existence, number 5 finds a threat far closer to home that also, coincidently, seems to be the great, hot button topic of our time – technology. While the irony of a Pixar movie waving the warning flag over the dominance of machines isn’t lost on us (they practically murdered cell animation overnight, remember), they’ve got certainly a point, and the rise of social media causing children to grow up way too fast proves to be a perfect place to draw the latest feature length panic attack that these beloved characters have to endure. However, while Toy Story 5 ultimately proves to thoroughly be a worthy entry (though still inferior to 1, 2 & 3), it does take a little time to boot up properly.
When judging a Toy Story film, there’s two things it absolutely must contain in order to rightfully call itself a worthy entry. The first is some existential rabbit hole I end up falling down when some horrific aspect of the life of a toy worms into my brain and won’t leave (the torturous existence of Forky, for example); the other is that at some point the movie has to break me emotionally over it’s knee and have me ugly crying much to the disgust of any children in my screening. While the first aspect is nicely covered by the fact that tech doesn’t seem to have a much better deal of it than toys do (Smarty Pants reveals he only got only a measly 3 months with his owner when he potty trained the horse mad Blaze), the second is delivered with some confidence as Joan Cusack’s Jessie finally takes the lead role after 27 years of playing second fiddle to the boys. By some stretch, Jessie is the most fucked up of the Toy Story gang thanks to a traumatic backstory delivered in the second film that she never quite got over, so when she sees that she’s gradually losing yet another owner, it’s especially powerful. In fact, in some ways, her issues with the smug Lily mirrors the same panic felt by Woody way back in the first movie when he went face to chin with the superior form of Buzz Lightyear.
However, a price has to be paid by both bringing Jessie and Bonnie so prominently to the foreground and that means a lot of the beloved characters accumulated from all the other movies has to take a back seat. OGs like Hamm and Slinky barely get a line between them, newcomers such as Duke Kaboom and Forky are mere cameos and even the triumphant return of Annie Potts’ Bo Peep has to concede precious screen time to Jessie and a new group of characters. Thankfully, they prove to be worthy of the sacrifice with Conan O’Brian’s scatalogical obsessed potty trainer, Smarty Pants, being a winner, as is the army of Buzz Lightyears who embark on an epic, movie-long odyssey of enlightenment. But while these disperate plot threads take some time to pay off and takes some unnecessary turns (you really could have made this story without a return from Woody whatsoever; and all of this definitely could have been avoided if Bonnie’s parents had set some fucking ground rules), once we get to the halfway point, they finally start to merge and some of the forced nature of the first act pays off in spades.
It’s gratifying that that world of Toy Story has become so rich that some of the supporting characters can take a turn in the spotlight and it doesn’t disrupt the flow of the series whatsoever, and the fact that one of the most consistent franchises in history can still surprise us while gut punching our emotions for 102 straight minutes is a genuine source of joy. And whoever thought to give Smarty Pants Conan O’Brian’s hair during a play sequence know this: you may have come up with the best in-joke of 2026.
While there’s always going to be some who will insist that the series should have stopped two movies ago, Toy Story 5 proves them emphatically wrong while proving that the franchise’s batteries are still pretty well charged. In fact, it’s quite amusing, in an existential panic sort of way, that a series about a bunch of toys constantly terrified they’re going to replaced proves to be still a relevant as ever. It’s still an honor to let Pixar toy with our emotions.
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