Review: Toy Story 5 miraculously returns the series to Pixar's golden age

Bring on Toy Story 6!

When I left the theater after seeing Toy Story 4 in 2019, I wasn’t just disappointed with the movie, I honestly felt betrayed. As silly as it sounds, I felt betrayed by Bonnie for neglecting to take care of Woody the way she promised Andy she would at the end of Toy Story 3. I felt betrayed by Woody for abandoning his friends to go off with Bo Peep, seemingly forever. Most of all I felt betrayed by Pixar for shortchanging nearly all of its longstanding Toy Story characters for one more cashgrab, especially after Toy Story 3 already provided the perfect ending to the franchise.

But leaving the theater after seeing Toy Story 5, I feel exactly the opposite. While the movie doesn’t quite reach the heights of the first three films, it is a thoughtful, funny, emotional entry into the franchise that improves upon Toy Story 4 in every way. And while I still kinda think the franchise should have concluded with Toy Story 3, I no longer fear and resent future Toy Story movies. Toy Story 5 is so good, and puts the characters in such a good place, that it changed my whole mentality on the matter.

In Toy Story 5, Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) is now eight years old, and she’s a fairly lonely kid. While she still loves to play with her toys, other kids her age are really into their electronic devices, and Bonnie feels left out. So her parents decide to get her a “Lilypad.” Pretty much instantly, Bonnie becomes addicted to the device, and her toys resent the device for changing Bonnie. Bonnie’s favorite toy, Jessie (Joan Cusack), is especially at a loss and decides to seek from Woody (Tom Hanks), who has spent the last few years as an adventuring “lost toy” with Bo Peep, helping toys in need of rescuing in the wild.

Unlike the previous four movies that mostly put Woody at the center, Toy Story 5’s lead is Jessie, and the shift works very well. Besides Woody, Jessie is really the only other Toy Story character with the emotional complexity to carry a film. Right at the beginning, director Andrew Stanton makes the shift in focus clear with a flashback scene featuring Jessie with her first owner, Emily. The sequence is reminiscent of the emotional flashback scene in Toy Story 2 where Jessie is abandoned and even features a quiet instrumental version of “When Somebody Loved Me.” If anything, Toy Story 5 is pretty much a direct sequel to Toy Story 2, as it picks up on Jessie’s feelings of abandonment established in that movie and explores them even more deeply.

After the emotional prologue, Toy Story 5 almost immediately began to resolve my grievances with the previous film. While Toy Story 4 features Bonnie neglecting Andy’s favorite toy, Toy Story 5 casts her in a sympathetic light as an imaginative kid who just wants a friend. The electronic device (voiced by Greta Lee) is introduced to help with that, but it ends up mostly making things worse. Toy Story movies have often been at their best when they find a story that serves the kid and the toys alike and Toy Story 5 has a great story for Bonnie.

Woody’s eventual arrival in Toy Story 5 is no surprise — he’s been in the trailers and featured in all the marketing — but it was a joy to see just how accessible Woody remains to the group. Jessie just turns on a walkie talkie and she’s in touch with him. Probably my biggest grievance with Toy Story 4 was that it ended with Woody breaking up the gang. After Andy gave up his toys at the end of Toy Story 3, the message to me was that Woody belongs with Buzz, Jessie, and the others even more than he does with Andy. Then Toy Story 4 saw him go off with Bo Peep. I like the Woody and Bo romance, but the ending suggested Woody would never see his friends again. Turns out, he’s just a few blocks down the street and easy to reach via walkie talkie. The convenience of it all probably does undermine the ending of Toy Story 4, but to me, that’s a good thing since I hated that ending anyway. So please, Pixar, undermine away.

But while those are major upgrades on Toy Story 4, there’s one area which is only a minor improvement. Toy Story 4 neglected nearly all of the supporting characters that began as Andy’s toys (like Slinky Dog, Hamm, the Potato Heads, etc). The problem is understandable, as the original trilogy just kept adding on new characters, but I still feel these movies need to find a moment for each member of the original gang. Toy Story 5 does not do that. While they’re given a little bit more to do, it still feels like they’re forgotten about.

The exception is Bullseye, who gets increased screentime as Jessie’s loyal steed. I’d even say Toy Story 5 is Bullseye’s finest hour.

But even undeserving the supporting players doesn't take away from how good this movie made me feel, which is a notable contrast to the sadness of the previous two films. Toy Story 3’s ending was sad in the most beautiful way possible, with Andy giving up his toys to Bonnie. Toy Story 4 seemed to want to replicate that sadness, so the movie forced Woody’s departure. Fortunately, Toy Story 5 didn’t compete for tears in the same way. Instead, I feel like I gained something this go around; just like Woody gained Buzz as a friend in the first movie, and we all gained Jessie and Bullseye in the second movie. Toy Story 5 helped me regain my enthusiasm for these characters, so much so that I’m now fine with whatever Toy Story movies Pixar decides to give us in the future.