Toy Story 3

Really, remarkably good. Everyone knows Toy Story, so no real recap is necessary. In this installment, Andy, their owner, has grown out of his toys, but is keeping them out of sentimental attachment. He's going off to college, and has no real idea what to do with them. He's going to stuff them up in the attic, but by a series of misunderstandings, they end up donated to a playgroup. Life isn't a bed of roses there, and so they resolve to escape, and make their way home.

This setup makes it three kinds of film, and it's a great example of each. Firstly, it's funny, it's a really good comedy. This isn't your animated film for the kids that has a few gags for the adults to stop them gnawing their own arms off in boredom, it's a snappy, intelligent script full of laughs from start to finish. Second, it's a great action film, full of death defying stunts. Finally, it's a surprisingly poignant drama about abandonment, moving on with your life, and those you leave behind. I hear that quite a lot of grown men cry at the ending. I didn't, of course. Those 3D glasses were just making my eyes water.

The 3D deserves a mention, I think, because this is the first film I've seen that I think uses it intelligently. "Up" was quite good, but the only time you really noticed it was when they were going "look, look, this thing's flying right at you!" which is the only thing 3D has really had going for it since they invented it. Here, we're seeing scenes such as when our heroes are trapped, apparently without hope of escape, in the incinerator of a rubbish dump. The scene has a presence to it that I'm sure is because of the immersive nature of 3D, and it's a more nailbiting, edge of the seat moment than you'll find in any film of recent years. It's a subtle use of 3D that I think conveys suspense in the same kind of way Hitchcock used music, to draw you in. There's some really, really clever filmmaking going on here.

Overall, I don't see that Toy Story is a series of kids films anymore. There's a (possibly pretentious) argument that these films are magical realism fantasies, like Michel Gondry makes. Sure, kids can enjoy them, but if you're willing to accept that these films are about a bunch of toys, then there's really nothing purely for kids about them.

Excellent film, go see it.