Starring: Chris Evans, Keke Palmer, Peter Sohn, James Brolin, Taika Waititi, Dale Soules, Uzo Aduba, Mary McDonald-Lewis, Efren Ramirez, Isiah Whitlock Jr.

Directed by Angus MacLane

Disney/Pixar, out June 17 2022

 

The film that made Andy get a Buzz Lightyear toy…

Toy Story is, in my mind, one of the few trilogies where each movie is perfect. Sure there’s a fourth film, but let’s not talk about that for now.

Buzz Lightyear is, if you’ve not been sleeping under a rock, one of the two main characters in what is, ensemble cast aside, one half of the cutest animated odd couple to ever grace our screens.

Lightyear is, according to a text preamble, the movie which spawned the Buzz Lightyear toy that Andy receives for his birthday and who upends everyone’s lives in the original Toy Story.

As far as it goes that’s all the link there is between Toy Story and Lightyear. Beyond that this really is its own tale which owes more to 2001, Interstellar and Star Wars than it does any kids movie I can think of.

I’ll start by saying that I was wrong footed by this film. I’ve become so used to the beat sheet for Disney Pixar stories that I was expecting a clear arc focusing on one central character (Buzz Lightyear).

Instead, Lightyear does something different. This is a AAA blockbuster from Disney Pixar but it’s structured as something much more interesting.

Firstly, this is an ensemble movie that rotates around Buzz. Buzz may be the central character, but this story is one about much more than a single Space Ranger.

A word before we go any further – this review is going to avoid spoilers because I think it’s important to see this film without prior knowledge. I know – that’s not a comment I thought I’d make about a Pixar movie either.

It also means it might be a little shorter than my heart would like. The things I do for you.

On the surface Lightyear is a movie about learning that you need help and that teams are better than individuals. Lightyear’s companions are diverse – in as progressive a way I have ever seen from Disney Pixar animation. No coy implications here – we have full on representation of all kinds. It’s presented deftly; this is a world in which these things just are with no additional comment required. That’s not to say the representation it’s sneaky – the representation is right there in your face (and for that we should absolutely celebrate).

However, this movie doesn’t go where you think it might.

It’s not actually a story about learning to accept help and to see value in others. It’s about a number of other things and they are woven together largely successfully even if the pacing is a little stop start.

There’s the poignant story of accepting your mistakes, of owning them and moving on. There’s the solid story of rising to the occasion, of being the hero you hope others will be. It’s a thrilling tale of overcoming the odds by accepting you can’t do it alone.

There’s also the tale about giving up on your dreams because life overtook you.

But most of all, this film is a deeply passionate repudiation of White supremacy. This is the second sentence about Lightyear I could not have predicted I’d write.

The reasons why are too spoilery for this review but as this realisation dawned on me in the screening I legitimately didn’t know what to think. I’d gone in expecting emotional manipulation and heft – instead what we get is something that could have been live action, is thoughtful and well structured but, I suspect, won’t hit home with audiences used to the rote playbook we’ve been absorbing without question for the last twenty years.

This is lamentable because Lightyear is a good film. Better than good – it is sharp, witty, well observed and has characters that upon rewatching I suspect are going to become beloved.

Yet its lack of simplicity will have people mistaking its story telling for missing the mark, for being messy.

If I have one criticism it’s that we don’t particularly feel any jeopardy. Again, the reasons are to venture into spoiler land but I think I can get away with saying that there isn’t really a stark antagonist. Oh, there’s an antagonist around whom the climax revolves but the narrative of the film is too subtle for them to be simply portrayed as evil or bad even if, in the end, their actions are exactly that and are clearly repudiated.

All of which leaves me back where we began. Lightyear is not the film you’re expecting. It’s not a tie-in film. It’s not a simple rehash of the hero’s journey (and thank all that’s holy we’re moving on from that even if it’s just this one example). It’s not an action adventure even if it has those elements in buckets.

It is a complex film about family, about growing up, about recovering after our mistakes and, finally, about what it means to make space for others.

It’s the kind of film about which to say ‘it has heart’ is a huge and meaningful statement.

Yet the things that make it interesting for me will also leave others feeling underwhelmed – at least this is what I expect. We’re too used to simple beats, too used to the playbook and, definitely, too used to eating up the ‘hero’s journey’ without criticising it in any way.

Lightyear criticises many things but it does so by showing alternatives rather than preaching and this too will, I suspect, be missed by many.

I never intended to write this about what should have been the ultimate in throwaway kids films – but Lightyear is a great film that will, I expect, be misunderstood. It is a wonderful film about what it means to be community and I wish we valued that more than we do.

So, please, go see it. Go in expecting something different, something that’s going to start clear and then take a left turn into nuanced story telling about stuff that actually matters.

Verdict: This is the most grown up ‘kids’ film I’ve seen in a long time and I hope Disney Pixar get to make more like it.

Rating? 8 hyperspace crystals out of 10.

Stewart Hotston