Tag: Tim Allen

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Animation Features Movies

Toy Story 5

Directors – Kenna Harris, Andrew Stanton – 2026 – US – Cert. PG – 102m

***1/2

The toys become sidelined when their child is given a screen-based tech device and she abandons them to spend all her time interacting with it – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 19th

After a damaged package of High-Tech edition Buzz Lightyear action figures causes a veritable battalion of them to fall from the sky, regular group of toys belonging to young girl Bonnie (voice: Scarlett Spears from Wicked for Good, John M.Chu, 2025) are the subject of her make believe games, switching satisfyingly from romantic wedding to murder mystery.

Leading toy character Cowgirl Jessie (voice: Joan Cusack from Toy Story 2–4; High Fidelity, Stephen Frears, 2000; Grosse Pointe Blank, George Armitage, 1997) takes it upon herself to turn up, ring pull voice self-activated, outside Bonnie’s garden fence, in an attempt to get Bonnie to make friends with the kids next door. Something Bonnie has been avoiding for months. 

Jessie has, however, reckoned without tech. Bonnie is the exceptional child who still plays with toys; most of the kids are glued to electronic devices, and have no need for traditional, physical toys or the type of play they inspire.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Lightyear

Director – Angus MacLane – 2022 – US – Cert. PG – 107m

**1/2

Stranded on a hostile planet, Buzz Lightyear sets out on a series of missions which eventually lead to his first confrontation with the evil Emperor Zurg – plays in the Annecy Animation Festival 2022 which is taking place in a 100% on-site edition this year right now as a Screening Event on Friday, June 17th, and opens in UK cinemas the same day.

A caption at the start explains that this was the favourite film of child protagonist Andy (from Pixar’s Toy Story franchise) and the reason he got a Buzz Lightyear toy in the first place. Other than that, though, this is a completely separate and self-enclosed film.

As the literal meaning of its title implies, Lightyear delivers a narrative that races through vast periods of time at a stretch, so that we and ace space pilot Buzz Lightyear (voice: Chris Evans) and his colleague Alisha Hawthorne (voice: Uzo Aduba) land their spaceship on an unexplored planet which turns out to be populated with hostile life-forms, specifically (1) plant tendrils which burst out of the planet’s surface and try to drag anything they can back under the ground and (2) giant, flying bugs.… Read the rest