Toy Story 4 is a grace under pressure classic for this generation

If the pressure exerted upon Toy Story 4 could be reproduced and sold in the form of a mineral it would be the largest and most valuable diamond ever….until the next Toy Story in 2028.Rare is the movie franchise that can produce a string of highly enjoyable, commercially successful and critically successful film past the third one. Think of a franchise that’s had more than three films in a row that have knocked it out of the park. While the series has maintained or kept going on, like Harry Potter, a film within the MCU or James Bond, there have been peaks and valleys that mar any series. Toy Story 4 bucks the trend and is pure cinematic joy. It’s neither too sentimental, sappy or nostalgic; rather, it acknowledges the history that it brings to the screen gleefully embraces it and then runs in a new direction.

What is that?, was almost certainly the thought when you first saw Forky. Toy Story 4 presents the home made toy that every kid has and establishes itself in the pantheon of classic toys we’ve all had. I still have a toy that I made as a child. It’s a crude block of clay with four stumps that barely resemble legs, a slightly bigger clump that might be its head and an odd twig of clay for a tail. This was no classic toy, but for a season of my childhood it held rank over G.I. Joe and the simple box of red, white and blue LEGO blocks that were in my closet.

What Toy Story 4 does so well is letting audiences think that they know what the film will be about, but then faking them out with plot shifts and pacing. Everything that you’ve seen in the trailer does happen, but not in the logical order that your mind thinks that it will be.

Running in tandem to the excellent script is the addition of some key new characters that really add to the film. Duke Caboom, Bunny, Ducky and Forky add to the movie in such a way the we don’t really miss Buzz and Woody when they aren’t on screen. Then, when either of them does come back on screen they manage to propel the movie even more forward, not that it was ever at a standstill.

Toy Story 4 goes from great, to good, to excellent and beyond. It’s filled with so much joy and happiness that audiences won’t want it to end. Our 9 year-old has seen dozens, perhaps 100+ movies and I have never heard him laugh as consistently as he did in Toy Story 4. There was one particular sequence that stars Bunny and Ducky that will have the entire theater howling with laughter.

The screening we attended of Toy Story was made up of about 65% adults and 35% children. This is one of those films where the older attendees are ones who attended one of the previous Toy Story films as a child. Like a child’s version of James Bond, this is a franchise that can exist for generations. Similar to a child’s fascination of the refrigerator light and if it stays on when the door is shut, they wonder and want to imagine a world where their toys come to life.

From a marketing perspective Toy Story 4 is meta and easy to buy into. There are Duke Caboom toys that look exactly like the Evil Kenevil toys I had as a kid. There’s a Little Bo Peep cane that’s a much of an action saber as a sheep wrangler. This is a story that has managed to make a cowboy cool again and does it with charm. Moreover, it does it while maintaining a G rating. This is a G rated film that anyone will love and audiences can only hope that Disney takes another nine year of craft before another one comes out. Then, our high school senior will probably see Toy Story 5 and enjoy it as much as he did Toy Story 4.