Review of Toy Story 5, directed by Andrew Stanton

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I recently started an 8-5 job and have been trying to reclaim my sanity and hobbies by finding fun things to do on the weekends and after work, and one of my saving graces truly has been my AMC A List subscription. I’ve always had one on and off throughout graduate school, and I recently reclaimed my subscription after a brief stint of thinking I was going to move to India (long story).

Sometimes the movies I really want to see aren’t included on AMC A List, which is sad, but I accept the reality of the situation. I get a ton of use out of this subscription despite that. On a slightly different note though, I used to work professionally as a film critic, which is very much a dying career, and when I would go to the film festivals I watched everything that really excited me.

A List is also an opportunity for me to go outside of my comfort zone. Recently, at the time of typing this, I’ve seen a handful of movies I don’t think I would have ever seen if I had to actually pay for them. I see so many movies throughout different states on A List that I basically make money off of AMC, rather than spending money. I have an entire spreadsheet for it.

It’s because of my A List subscription that I ended up seeing Toy Story 5 with my older sister on a Sunday night. We saw it in the Dolby format and were surrounded by some excited kids, which is always hit or miss in theaters these days.

Let’s get into the review!

After Jessie realizes that toys are becoming obsolete after seeing technology in other kids’ homes, she decides to save her child before it’s too late.

This movie begins in the past, where we see Jessie with her original owner. The lore behind Jessie, the ranger, is that she’s an older vintage toy that’s still somehow being played with in the original day. So in this flashback scene, her original owner, who’s now a full grown adult somewhere, promises to keep her forever. That leaves some unresolved trauma with Jessie, as she never forgot that promise and subsequently being abandoned.

In the present day, Jessie and the crew are owned by Bonnie. Bonnie desperately wants other kids to play with her, especially the twins across the street, but no one will ever come over and do so. Dejected, she heads inside after a failed play session, and Jessie and her horse, Bullseye, go to investigate as to why this is happening.

They see the twins playing with screens, then meet the dejected toys previously owned by them. The other toys reveal that all of the kids these days are playing with technology, and Jessie vows to never let Bonnie fall to the same fate. However, that same night, Bonnie’s parents order her a screen called Lily.

Bonnie immediately becomes addicted to her new tech, and Jessie and the crew are dejected. She confronts Lily and tells her that Bonnie needs friends in real life, but Lily doubles down and says that she can connect with people online, adding friends for Bonnie from her dance class. Jessie confides to Woody about how she’s feeling via a walkie talkie (Woody and Bo Beep are rescuing lost toys abandoned by their owners nowadays), while Buzz debates proposing to her.

When Bonnie is invited to a sleepover with the girls from her dance class, Jessie sneaks into her luggage, leaving Buzz as her deputy. She thinks that if they play together it will solve everything, but the girls end up all wanting to be on their screens and make fun of Bonnie for having Jessie and Bullseye. They escape from the car on the way back, and a lost older couple ends up seeing her original owner’s address and leave them in the mailbox.

Jessie and Bullseye end up being taken by the new house owner’s pig into a home full of forgotten toys. The rest stay behind, but Jessie teams up with Smarty Pants, a tech used to potty train kids, to go into the home. While in there he has her replenish his batteries and revive his friends Atlas and Snappy.

They don’t know what real playtime is like, and after spotting the daughter of the family, Blaze, be rejected by one of her supposed friends, Jessie makes amends with the tech and shows Blaze how she could play with them. They make a plan to put in the Lilypad atmosphere that Jessie and Bullseye are missing, and Buzz and Woody see it back at Bonnie’s house.

They force Lily to send it to all of Bonnie’s contacts, including her dance friends. Her mom spots the notification and they go to get Jessie, but while arriving there Bonnie’s dance group makes fun of her for her toys. She ends up leaving Jessie and Bullseye alone with Blaze. Jessie flees the house, with Bullseye chasing after her, and uses the Clydesdale living on the property to go up to the hill where she used to play with Emily.

There, Jessie finds a time capsule buried where she used to lay. In it is a photo of Emily and her daughter, who she named after Jessie. It’s then that Jessie realizes she made a lifelong impact on Emily, and that she wasn’t truly abandoned after all.

As this is going on, a bunch of shipwrecked Buzz Lightyear toys go on a journey following a star. Eventually, after losing one to a camping adventure, they see the notification of Jessie being lost, see the star on her chest, and end up deciding she is their leader. Eventually they cross paths with Buzz and Woody, who convince them to together, and they all meet up at the hill where Jessie and Bullseye are.

Bonnie’s mother takes her to get ice cream, then Lily puts herself in a donation box after realizing she’s made many mistakes in Bonnie’s life. Using the crew she befriended at the new house, Jessie ends up getting into contact with Lily, launching a full scale rescue operation. Along the way, Buzz and she kiss, finally confessing to each other, and they come up with a new plan to make Bonnie and Blaze play together.

By sending notifications through the messaging app, Blaze shows up the next day with Jessie and Bullseye in hand. Bonnie denies playing with toys at first, then cracks down and asks Blaze to play with her. The movie ends with Jessie and Buzz getting married while playing, and Blaze and Bonnie becoming good friends.

Overall Thoughts

Listen, this isn’t a revolutionary movie, but I thought it was pretty decent for something that has been pretty dragged out as a franchise. I haven’t seen a lot of the movies in this franchise, which is probably better in the long run in terms of expectations, but considering I had very low expectations for this movie going into it, I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw on the screen.

Not only are the themes relevant beyond kids, but it had a lot of really funny moments. There were people in my theater who were laughing out loud and hard at some of these scenes, and I had a good chuckle here and there too. Sometimes movies aren’t meant to be high art, but they’ll stick with you despite that. I think this is one of those movies, especially considering Jessie’s arc to realize only small moments can make a big impact.

Go see this one if you haven’t already. Movies are meant to be experienced, not read about on the Internet!

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