Toy Story 5 keeps the franchise alive with yet another instalment of toys working together to serve the kids who play with them, and Mangoidiots gives it a Ripe.
The main backdrop this time is the growing addiction among children, some as young as kindergarten, to digital screens, and the slow fading away of physical toys. While this is an important topic for a franchise of this name, to me as an adult, it felt preachy and lost me for the first hour or so. Surprisingly, the second half takes a new route and saved the film for me.
In this episode, we see two stories joining and travelling together. One is of a consignment of Buzz Lightyear toys getting marooned on a deserted island. The second is of Jessie, Buzz, and the other toys losing out on Bonnie’s attention, the child who plays with them. Bonnie has taken to a new tablet called Lilypad, which also connects her to her school friends. The film focuses on the growing social problem of children getting exposed to the toxic social media culture. The story is about how Jessie and the others help Bonnie grow up with a true friend.
Needless to say, the making of the film was phenomenal, and watching it in 3D was beautiful. In the theatre today, I was probably the oldest in the audience. The others were young children and their parents. The kids seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the action on screen, and that is the whole point of the film. The screenplay loses momentum in the middle, and it did test my patience for some time. But thankfully, once a new narrative emerges around digital devices, it picks up steam.
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