Lightyear (2022)

Pixar these days are no strangers to spin offs or sequels, they’ve already committed the supposedly unforgivable sin of making a fourth Toy Story film, that if we’re honest, was nothing on the first three but certainly did a fine job of not disgracing the name of the franchise. Lightyear is purely a monetary exercise as you’d expect, but it’s bombed at the box office which is a tad surprising. Lightyear is supposedly the film that a young Andy saw before receiving the toy of Buzz Lightyear for his birthday in the original Toy Story (1996), so the premise does hold up; it’s an interesting idea. The problem is that Lighyear never really becomes more than an interesting idea, but that isn’t to say that it’s anywhere near as bad as some have claimed. To call it an origin story would be to miss sell the film, Buzz is already a space ranger as we begin the film, crash landing on an unknown planet and he ends up having to spend many years there, searching for a way to get off the planet with the help from friends, who change as the film goes on to play with time travel and intergalactic travel, reminding you of Interstellar (2014) to some extent. So it has plenty of enjoyable moments and some nice touches but it lacks the connection of the Toy Story films, and is badly missing the lovable characters of those films. Buzz’s pet robotic cat Sox steals the show (as you may have predicted from the trailers) voiced by Peter Sohn, and is easily the best thing in the film. Lightyear goes on for at least twenty minutes more than it should, and the ending(s) become repetitive to the point of irritation; it’s a film that really didn’t need to exist at all, but now that it does, a bit like Toy Story 4, it could have been so much worse. 6.0/10