Toy Story 4 (2019)

You know how I found out about the passing of veteran entertainer Don Rickles? I saw Toy Story 4 and noticed that Potato Head was present throughout, but only spoke a single line (off screen) the entire time. By the time the credits rolled, I was busy googling whether or not Rickles was still alive, and found my answer way before the brief post-credits dedication to his memory. Rickles died in 2017, by which time voice recording had not yet begun, and it would seem that Pixar decided the most graceful way to deal with this issue was to steal an unused sound byte from a previous instalment and simply tack it on. This move sets the bar for the entire movie, which left me angry in a way unlike any movie in recent (or even more distant) memory.

Having heard from critics I respect that Toy Story 4 held up surprisingly well, I went in with middling expectations and by the 30 minute mark, I was absolutely over this shit. What I was faced with was 90 minutes of live vivisection of a childhood icon. I hope that by the end of this diatribe, I have successfully expressed my disdain for this picture, and haven't been sidetracked by animalistic rage and many four-letter words.

Y'know partner, this used to be a respectable franchise.

Unlike every other chapter, Toy Story 4 does not begin with a fantasy action sequence, but with some incident in Andy's childhood in which RC is somehow getting sucked into a storm drain outside while a Gumtree user rocks up to the house to collect a lamp he has purchased, which is apparently where Bo Peep originates, despite us never having seen her act as part of a lighting appliance. We don't kinow how or why RC ended up outside in torrential rain, but it serves to give Woody and Bo an odd farewell scene. Flash to nine years later, and the toys are in the possession of Bonnie, as the third film left them. The less than likeable kid is about to start kindergarten and Woody tags along to make sure things go well. The kid creates a crude figurine out of a plastic spork, pipecleaners and lolly sticks, the aptly named Forky, and brings it home, where Woody sets about trying to teach the developmentally stunted creature to live as a toy.

Of course, the toys have to have an adventure away from home, so the kid's parents suggest a road trip. The retarded spork acts like someone's senile parent, constantly wandering off, and eventually throws itself from the RV window, prompting Woody to follow, assuring the other toys that he is entirely capable of catching them up at their destination five miles down the road. On foot; on toy foot. Of course this is stupid, but how else are we going to send Woody off on his latest wild goose chase?

The substance of the movie, if it can be called that, is so unforgivably lazy: the previous scores are recycled, with the addition of a single uninspired song by Randy Newman; scenarios veiled as homage directly rip off preceding chapters; the new characters are inconsistent and not at all relatable. Toy Story 3 was a retread of Toy Story 2 in terms of plot, but it still showed creativity, poignancy, humour and thematic strength. Toy Story 4 feels a lot like the family film equivalent of Game of Thrones Season 8: it is entirely disinterested in engaging our minds or emotions, takes half-assed shortcuts, and seems to think that its validity relies on their ability to remind us how good the previous instalments of the same story were. Hey, remember how awesome Randy Newman's music wqas? Here it is, literally all over again. Hey, remember how the toys launched themselves in a conga missile through the catflap of Sid's house in a rescue attempt? Here is pretty much the same thing all over again.

My face throughout this movie

All characters but Woody are resigned to the background. Buzz is occupied with a stupid and nonsensical microplot that hangs on conscience and voicebox being synonymous in the toy world; Jesse and Bullseye have absolutely nothing to do, and favourite bit players such as Potato Head and Rex may as well not even be there. Bo Peep is given an inexplicable makeover, from her voice, to her origins, to her physical makeup. She was previously an entirely porcelain figure, but now her clothes are made of fabric and are removable. Her sheep now have names, and she drives some sort of vehicle disguised as a skunk. She claims she has been living her best life as a free and independent woman for the last nine years, but later laments that she spent years gathering dust on the shelf of an antique store. Everything is so confused and nonsensical, and it made my blood boil to watch.

The villain of this piece is the most underdeveloped and unstable of the series. A Gabby Gabby doll, who purports to date from the '50s, just like Woody - uhh, what?! - has never been loved because her voicebox never worked, and so her evil plan is to get Woody drunk at a bar, seduce him and allow him to wake up in a bathtub full of ice. Well, actually, she just straight up tells Woody that he is about to get organ trafficked, but after hearing her half-hearted spiel, Woody just relents and allows her to take his voicebox, and later wakes up having his back stitched up by a ventriloquist dummy. It was so dark in a way that hasn't fit the Toy Story tone since the very first movie, and struck me as kind of disturbing. Then it is never touched on again. Nothing about how they never needed their voicebox to be loved by a kid or anything. Woody just gets his fucking organs stolen by some mad doll, who then becomes a sympathetic anti-hero for the narrative, and gets a happy ending nothing like that awarded to Stinky Pete or to Lotso. The tone of this movie is up and down like a tart's drawers.

Another questionable addition is that of what I refer to as 'ghetto comedy'. You know, that kind of thing where a black character makes any loud and sarcastic comment, and it is played like it is funny, regardless of whether it actually is. Two stuffed animals from a carnival tag along with Woody for some reason, and serve no purpose other than to yell "Nawwww way, man!" every now and then.

The ending is perhaps one of the most maddening elements of the movie, so *spoiler alert*. When the rest of the toys finally reunite with Woody and Bo at the end of the ordeal, Woody does that weird thing that has become more prevalent as the Toy Storys have gone along, where there are long shots of his furrowed brow as he reflects on something that we cannot interpret. He then murmers a few words to other characters like "Are you sure?" and we just have to wait impatiently to find out exactly what he is referring to. This time, it turns out that Woody has decided that he doesn't need a kid anymore, and is instead going to become the Mickey to Bo's Mallory. That's right, he leaves all of his longtime friends behind in order to enjoy some porcelain pussy. What the actual fuck?!

I'm sure there are one or two other annoyances that have slipped through the cracks of my exhausted bullshit detector, but quite frankly, I feel that I have given this shite movie enough of my precious time for one day and one lifetime. I will never watch this movie again, and I hate to say that it takes twisted glee in slowly picking the stitches that Toy Story 3 had so neatly sewn. Fuck this movie.