Movie of the Week: Toy Story 3

I just thought of a new article I could start. On Sundays, I'm going to name a movie of the week. Throughout the week, I'll try and relate other articles to the movie, you can write in with some questions you have about any aspect of the movie and on the following Sunday, I'll list a new movie and write a post about the previous one. I'll go ahead and give you some background on this week's movie.

Toy Story 3 was released last weekend to box office and critical acclaim. To date, Toy Story 3 has made around 270 million dollars worldwide.

I finally got to see if yesterday and I really liked it a lot. Pixar can do no wrong in my book. I'm going to be flabbergasted when one of their movies flops. If ever it should happen.

I noticed an intriguing incident while I saw it. When that Disney intro hit and that familiar music played over the revelation of the castle, I got this feeling over me that was just in utter anticipation of the movie I'm about to see. Through some Pavlovian response, that short measure that indicates the Disney emblem just enchants me. The graphics from the Disney logo have changed over time obviously, but to my knowledge, not much has changed in the music that accompanies it. Now sure I feel a bit weird about getting insanely excited over a Disney movie as a 25 year old man, but I think that's a testament to the power of movies. Disney has put their name on several great pieces of work over the past 87 years. This stimulus/response action that I experienced could have just come from the Lion King alone. I must have seen that movie 40-50 times; at least 5 in theaters.


Now, specifically about Toy Story 3. I thought it was really very good. I will admit that I've never seen Toy Story 2, so I believe I was missing out on some of the references from Buzz and Jessie. The rest of the plot was an endearing and heartfelt story that seemed relevant and natural to the Toy Story canon. The voice acting was superb as well; most notably from Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. Ned Beatty did a wonderful job as the maybe not-so-good Lotso. Throw in a bit of Joan Cusak, Michael Keaton and Whoopi Goldberg and you've really got something to work with.

The story was just a bit on the predictable side, but you can't really expect children to be entertained and understand what's going on when the movie is in the form of "Memento" or something. The movie seemed, to me at least, to be a closure to the series, but I guess there could be a way to bring about another sequel if they really wanted to.

In summation, I'm going to have to give Toy Story a GAF score of 98, which I believe is it's current standing on Rotten Tomatoes. So if you haven't seen it, then make some plans for the theater, so that we can discuss it further in a week! Until then, keep it reel.