Review of Toy Story

I was a little worried when I fired up Toy Story. I generally find children's entertainment to be vacuous, irritating and often in bad taste. However, as the opening scenes of the movie started up, I began to understand that I was mistaken to apply any kid's movie prejudice to Toy Story. It was clear that this movie was designed not just for the brats, but for me as well. It held my interest right throughout and gave me several belly laughs.

What I find remarkable about Toy Story is how good it looks. This movie is now over ten years old and the animation still looks good. Maybe the Incredibles or talking cars or whatever people are animating these days look better, but my untrained eye can't tell the difference. The toys just look good. And here's another important thing: at no point did my eyes get lost during the action. I find that many computer animators put too many things on screen at once, whether its too much action, too many colours or poor framing I'm not sure. All I know is that I couldn't tell what the hell was going on in the previews for Robots. Toy Story always kept my eyes interested without tiring them out.

The plot is really good. The computer animation is in service to the plot, not the other way around. My one complaint would be that Woody, the main protagonist, pissed me right off. The plot doesn't seem to make him sympathetic at the beginning of the story, so his political macinations against Buzz just seem petty.

The voice acting is great. Tom Hanks gives the weakest performance as Woody, but (and I shudder to praise this man) Tim Allen was fantastic as overly-heroic Buzz. Maybe I still have a soft spot for R. Lee Ermey, but I just love that drill sergeant schtick he does, and his deadpan performance as the army-man sergeant cracked me up.

Anyway, fantastic little movie that I wouldn't mind my theoretical children watching. If you haven't seen it, stop being such a jackass and watch it.

4 out of 5 army-men