A Charming Continuation of a Legendary Trilogy – This Time, It Really Seems to Be the Last. No, Seriously.
Woody, Buzz, and all their friends are happily living with their new owner, Bonnie, a sweet girl about to start first grade. One day, with a little help from the plastic cowboy, Bonnie brings home a homemade toy from school – Forky, crafted from disposable utensils and other odds and ends. He quickly becomes the favorite, overshadowing all the store-bought toys, but Forky isn't exactly thrilled about it. When the family embarks on a road trip, Forky, not fully grasping his transition from trash to sentient toy, makes a break for it out the car window. Woody, ever burdened by his heightened sense of duty, sets off to rescue him.
Any sequel to "Toy Story" was bound to face some skepticism. The franchise's conclusion in the third film was just so logical, beautiful, and perfect in every way. The poignant farewell between the toys and Andy – a projection of the young viewer who inevitably grew up alongside them – didn't leave much room for epilogues or continuations. It was an irrevocably completed journey that we shared with the characters for 15 years, and any direction a new film could take felt almost like a betrayal. Yes, we said goodbye to the toys and accepted that we had become too old for them, but we really didn't want to see a new owner tearing off their plastic limbs and smearing them in the mud.
But as it turns out, the ending of the third installment wasn't lying: the "Toys" remained in safe hands after the change of ownership. The fourth film itself doesn't feel like a desperate attempt to find a new audience, but rather another nostalgic, bittersweet epitaph for days gone by. It was primarily written by the same old team – even John Lasseter, now controversial, managed to participate in the screenplay – and along with them, that elegiac tone that colored the third part never went away.
The screenwriters very cleverly bypassed the completeness of the previous film by finding an interesting loophole – the disappearance of Bo Peep, the porcelain shepherdess, who silently vanished somewhere between the second and third installments. Largely because of this, "Toy Story 4" feels surprisingly... appropriate for an unnecessary sequel. It's as if it was originally in the authors' grand plans – the conflict that arises here in the soul of Woody, who seemed to have found peace, feels so organic. If he dedicated the entire trilogy to serving others and humbly accepted a new place and a new child-owner at the end, here he is offered the chance to live for himself for the first time, something he, of course, doesn't know how to do. And to leave the games to the young: specifically, a homemade toy made of, ahem, trash and sticks, who keeps gravitating back to the garbage.
In this regard, the fourth "Toy Story" is very reminiscent of "Cars 3" – another Pixar film about the changing of generations, resignation, and acceptance, with the same sweetly geriatric tone. There are no villains here at all; even the dolls, as terrifying as death, straight from the "uncanny valley," turn out to be victims of circumstances. The only thing that truly drives the characters is the desire for equal happiness for all, and to ensure that, as they say, no one leaves feeling slighted. Their philanthropy is as naive as ever, but it's not childish at all: it's a completely mature humanitarianism, endearingly sentimental and almost sacred in its relentless belief in global goodness.
Pixar continues to cleverly play with the audience's emotions, using the same, seemingly familiar techniques, successfully placed accents, and melodramatic music to evoke a flood of tears from anyone who has retained something even remotely resembling human feelings. In addition to all its intertextual merits, "Toy Story" is generally rich in emotions: it's sad, scary (the dolls are truly creepy), and very funny. Most of the humor, however, has been given to the newcomers: that very homemade toy with the telling name Forky, a hilarious pair of plush hooligans, and especially the great Duke Caboom, a stuntman-showoff with a stunningly absurd backstory and the voice of Keanu Reeves (though, of course, not in our version). From the old guard, only Buzz Lightyear is acting up – sadly, without the "Spanish mode" anymore.