My (scathing) review of Toy Story 3
If Toy Story 3 was rated R I would say it was a brilliant movie. However, given that it is marketed towards kids, my opinion is that it is a sadistic, violent film out of the imagination of some compete nut job that is inappropriate for kids. Here’s how I imagine the movie being pitched before it was created…
Person with the idea: ”I have a great idea for a film. Lets make a movie about a really nice group of friends who get kidnapped and put in prison as a result of a series of accidents who are forced to deal unexpectedly with some extremely evil people. Let’s show them get beaten, tortured and intimidated by a bunch of sickos who run the prison and then show their desperate attempts to escape.”
Movie company: “Sounds pretty intense. Who will be the star? Sounds like a perfect role for Sylvester Stallone or Bruce Willis.
Person with the idea: “No, check this out… instead of having real people in the film we’ll have every character played by a kids toy. That way we can make a billion dollars and get some huge sponsorship deals with McDonalds. And as long as make the coming attraction and poster look friendly, people won’t even realize we’re scaring the shit out of their kids.”
Movie company: “Genius… pure genius!”
Bottom line, my 3 year old was too young to know what the heck was going on so she loved it. But my 6 year old cried throughout the entire movie asking me why everyone was being so mean to each other. I spent at least as much time in the hallway trying to comfort her as i did in the theater. I told her we didn’t have to stay, but she had the natural urge to stick it out.
Quite honestly, I was proud that she was so sensitive about it, because it tapped into a very dark, evil part of human behavior. It’s Pixar and Disney that I’m ashamed of and it’s whatever agency gave it a rating of G that I’m angry at.
Person with the idea: ”I have a great idea for a film. Lets make a movie about a really nice group of friends who get kidnapped and put in prison as a result of a series of accidents who are forced to deal unexpectedly with some extremely evil people. Let’s show them get beaten, tortured and intimidated by a bunch of sickos who run the prison and then show their desperate attempts to escape.”
Movie company: “Sounds pretty intense. Who will be the star? Sounds like a perfect role for Sylvester Stallone or Bruce Willis.
Person with the idea: “No, check this out… instead of having real people in the film we’ll have every character played by a kids toy. That way we can make a billion dollars and get some huge sponsorship deals with McDonalds. And as long as make the coming attraction and poster look friendly, people won’t even realize we’re scaring the shit out of their kids.”
Movie company: “Genius… pure genius!”
Bottom line, my 3 year old was too young to know what the heck was going on so she loved it. But my 6 year old cried throughout the entire movie asking me why everyone was being so mean to each other. I spent at least as much time in the hallway trying to comfort her as i did in the theater. I told her we didn’t have to stay, but she had the natural urge to stick it out.
Quite honestly, I was proud that she was so sensitive about it, because it tapped into a very dark, evil part of human behavior. It’s Pixar and Disney that I’m ashamed of and it’s whatever agency gave it a rating of G that I’m angry at.
19 Responses16 Comments 3 Recommends
I’d modify that to say “Toy Story 3 brings to life more adventures from Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the rest of Andy’s toys as they unknowingly end up in a prison run by sick, evil people.”
And on IMDB the tagline is “The Breakout Comedy Of The Summer.” Give me a break! “Schindler’s List for Kids” would be more accurate.
Toy Story one was not even for very young kids. I’d say this franchise is appropriate for 8 and above. The story in the movie pulls in the adults. I don’t imagine kids below 8 would even get the point, I wouldn’t have taken them.
Yesterday I took one of my kids to see “Despicable Me” - an entertaining little film, definitely enjoyable by kids and adults, with evil parts being subdued, appropriately & refreshingly so, with bad characters being totally digestible, and in fact the main character being very likable, especially as the movie progressed. I’ve see a bunch of “Despicable Me is fine, but it’s no Toy Story 3″ and I have to agree with the premise, although not their implication. If one considers which movie to take the kids to - skip Toy Story 3 and see Despicable Me instead.
P.S. Loved the minions and dumbfounded that there aren’t any minion-related toys/products out there. I’d love to have a minion hanging off my rear view mirror in the car…
I have a lot of admiration for Pixar and I definitely feel that Finding Nemo was the finest piece of computer-animated film ever made, their short films are great, even the Day & Night short film before Toy Story 3 was very imaginatively done, something I expect out of Pixar, but they fell short on this one, unfortunately. Perhaps it’s the sign that the old Pixar is too tired etc. to put out extraordinary stuff as they did a few times in the past.
It’s not unlike Disney themselves, there is no Mickey Mouse today, nor a movie with the quality (in all respects, especially the story & delivery) like Winnie the Pooh etc. They old masters who delivered it are no longer here and we see the results.
For whatever reason, many things keep diminishing, even though the ‘progress’ has been substantial in many areas. We don’t have Bachs, Mozarts or even the Beatles any longer, we don’t have Michelangelos, John Waynes or Walt Disneys and even though the art of movie making has been tremendously improved (via technology & ton of people & money thrown to make them) - I’ve yet to see recently something like Ben Hur or even the Godfather.