Richard Crouse: ‘Toy Story 5’ brims with heart and humour

Film critic Richard Crouse reviews ‘Toy Story 5’ and ‘The Death of Robin Hood.’

By the time a franchise gets to the fifth instalment it’s usually a case of diminishing returns. The further you get from the source, the worse the movie. Luckily, “Toy Story 5” defies traditional wisdom, delivering a movie for the whole family that brims with heart and humour.

The story revolves around lonely eight-year-old Bonnie (Scarlett Spears), the only kid on the block who still plays with toys, like the cowgirl rag doll Jessie (Joan Cusack) and superhero action hero Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen). The other kids spend their time on their screens and don’t have time for a girl who still plays with dolls.

Hoping to help her fit in, Bonnie’s parents (Lori Alan and Jay Hernandez) buy her a Lilypad (Greta Lee), a frog-shaped smart tablet that comes complete with games, chat rooms, social media and a very assertive attitude.

“Once tech enters your home,” says tech-phobic toy Dr. Nutcase (voiced by Matty Matheson), “it’s over.”

As Bonnie plays games and joins chat rooms on the device, she spends less and less time with Jessie and the other toys.

“Extinction!” yelps Rex the dinosaur (Wallace Shawn). “Not again!”

With the help of a team of Buzz Lightyear and cowboy ragdoll Woody (Tom Hanks), who returns from rescuing abandoned toys, Jessie sets off to make sure Bonnie makes new friends, without forgetting about her toy pals.

“Playing games isn’t play,” Woody says.

“Toy Story 5” isn’t the old man of the franchise, yelling at technology to get off its lawn. Nor is it a story about the evils of tech. Instead, it’s a testament to the power of imagination.

It’s about screens versus imagination, and the joys that come when an unstructured young mind is allowed to run wild, to create and learn. But the screenplay by Andrew Stanton and Kenna Harris doesn’t dismiss the place of passive tech in the modern world, it simply favours playtime over screen time.

As a movie, “Toy Story 5” has a sense of play about itself. Like the best of Pixar, it tackles real world issues like online bullying, insecurity (“What if am I just no good at being a toy?” asks Jessie), the value of childhood memories and what true friends are. But it does so in a way that never feels maudlin.

Director Stanton keeps things lively, pulling fun voice work from the returning cast, plus new additions like Conan O’Brien – who has a blast voicing Smarty Pants, a toilet training tablet – and inserting some self-aware jokes, like depicting Woody, presumably the oldest of the toys, with a bald spot.

Add to that beautiful cinematic visuals, with state-of-the-art 3D computer animation embellished with a lovely, handcrafted look for the imagination scenes, and you have a fine addition to the “Toy Story” franchise, rich in timely themes of the effects of tech on blossoming minds but never preachy or pedantic.

4 stars