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    Movie Review

    Pixar conjures magic yet again with bittersweet Toy Story 4

    Alex Bentley
    Jun 20, 2019 | 12:06 pm
    Pixar conjures magic yet again with bittersweet Toy Story 4
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    The mere existence of Toy Story 4 is a little bittersweet. As fans of the series know, the final moments of Toy Story 3 (which, BTW, came out NINE years ago) seemed a pitch-perfect ending to the series, with all the toys we know and love moving on from their original owner, Andy, so that a new child, Bonnie, could grow up with them.

    But no matter why Pixar decided to go ahead with a fourth film, it remains an utter pleasure to spend time with the characters that made the studio the powerhouse it is today. This time, Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), Hamm (John Ratzenberger), and more are on a road trip with Bonnie (Madeleine McGraw) and her family. Bonnie, who recently started kindergarten, has created her new favorite toy, Forky (Tony Hale), and thanks to Forky’s strong desire to throw himself in the trash, Woody takes it upon himself to protect Forky at all costs.

    This proves an exhausting job, and one of Woody’s many attempts at rescue leads them both into a small-town antique store, where Woody thinks he has found the long-lost Bo Peep (Annie Potts). There, they also encounter Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks), an old doll who has long lingered on the shelf thanks to a broken voice box. When she discovers Woody is a pull-string toy, she covets his voice box to make her whole again.

    Those are the basics, but there is so much going on in the film that it would be impossible to cover it all in a synopsis. Written by Andrew Stanton and Stephany Folsom and directed by Josh Cooley, the characters have an adventure more-than-worthy of previous entries in the series, buoyed by the outstanding humor and emotion that Pixar has brought to nearly every film in its history.

    As they’ve done in the other films in the series, the filmmakers seamlessly integrate a variety of new characters. Forky is hilarious from the start, as are carnival toys Bunny (Jordan Peele) and Ducky (Keegan-Michael Key), motorcycle daredevil Duke Kaboom (Keanu Reeves), and Giggle McDimples (Ally Maki). Gabby Gabby is ostensibly the villain of the film, especially when she calls in a troupe of ventriloquist dummies to protect her, but she comes with a heartbreaking backstory that makes her feel less than evil.

    Unsurprisingly, the film’s animation is absolutely gorgeous. While the core characters are still recognizable from their debut in 1995, the advance in the amount of detail the animators can now show on them and the world in general is staggering. There are many times where, with a little suspension of disbelief, the film could plausibly be passed off as live action, especially when it comes to things like water and hair.

    Now, the bittersweet feeling comes with knowing — absolutely this time — that it will be the final experience watching and listening to these iconic characters. For the past 25 years, they have set a standard that most other films can’t match. They will live on in the hearts of children and the young at heart, but the tears that come at the end aren’t merely because of the stellar storytelling.

    It may not have truly needed to be made, but Toy Story 4 is just as good as any of the other films in the series and proves once again that Pixar is the undisputed master in the animation field.

    Gabby Gabby and Woody in Toy Story 4.

    Gabby Gabby and Woody in Toy Story 4
      
    Photo courtesy of Walt Disney Studios
    Gabby Gabby and Woody in Toy Story 4.
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    Movie Review

    Animated Disney film Elio is fun but falls short of Pixar top tier

    Alex Bentley
    Jun 19, 2025 | 1:22 pm
    Elio (Yonas Kibreab) and Glordon (Remy Edgerly) in Elio
    Photo courtesy of Pixar
    Elio (Yonas Kibreab) and Glordon (Remy Edgerly) in Elio.

    Pixar has done a ton of different things in the 28 feature films they’ve released over the past 30 years, but the one they’d never done is deal with aliens (and, no, the alien toys in Toy Story don’t count). Now they’re going where many storytellers have gone before, but in their own unique way, in the new film Elio.

    Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) is a space fanatic who has recently lost both of his parents in an unnamed event. His Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) is now his guardian, and because she happens to be a member of the U.S. Space Force, Elio finds himself tantalizingly close to communications from space. With a desire to be abducted by aliens for both curiosity and sentimental reasons, Elio sends a message into space, hoping for some kind of response.

    He gets that and more when a ship full of multiple types of beings takes him into space, believing him to be a leader instead of a child. An encounter with a hostile force led by Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett) gives Elio both a new friend, Grigon’s son Glordon (Remy Edgerly), and responsibility for maintaining peace during an unexpected galactic crisis.

    Pixar has not typically followed the route of many Disney movies of giving their child protagonist the trauma of dead parents, and doing so here is the first of a few minor missteps. Having Olga be his mom instead of his aunt would have altered their dynamic, but only slightly. While Elio is shown to miss his parents, his major focus is on making contact with aliens. Since the film only briefly deals with his grief, it would have been better served by excising it altogether.

    For the most part, the film is goofy, with Elio’s enthusiasm for aliens matched by the oddness of the creatures he meets in space. The filmmakers - there are three credited directors and three credited writers - seem to have taken inspiration from sea creatures and Pixar’s own history, as the main bad guy emulates Mike and Sully’s boss from Monsters, Inc. Almost every character in the film is heightened to a degree that makes for funny situations, but not as much sentimentality as other Pixar offerings.

    Surprisingly, especially since the film ends with a voiceover from notable astronomer Carl Sagan, the filmmakers play fast and loose with real-life science. Elio’s journeys to and from the alien spaceship are treated as close-to-instantaneous trips, even involving portals directly to Earth. The idea of the story doesn’t allow them to delve into things like relativistic time dilation, but there still could have been other scientific references to keep the story aboveboard.

    There are very few stars to be found among the film’s voice cast other than Saldaña and Garrett, who are each fine if unmemorable. Kibreab and Edgerly are given many more scenes than anyone else, and they each do a great job of bringing out both the joy and naivete of their characters. Some lesser-known actors like Jameela Jamil, Atsuko Okatsuka, and Brendan Hunt show up in minor roles, but they don’t stand out in any way.

    The story and characters in Elio are sweet and fun, but the film as a whole falls well short of the top tier Pixar movies. The filmmakers could have gone many different directions with a story about a boy who wants to be abducted by aliens, and the way they chose ended up being innocuous and less than compelling.

    ---

    Elio opens in theaters on June 20.

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