I’m a little late to this one because I refused to see it in a movie theater, but now that it’s officially released on Disney+, I figured I would give it a watch. The story behind this movie has confused me from the get-go, and I still am baffled by the concept of it alone. It served its purpose, but I found it to be painfully mediocre from beginning to end.
SYNOPSIS: Legendary space ranger Buzz Lightyear embarks on an intergalactic adventure alongside ambitious recruits Izzy, Mo, Darby, and his robot companion, Sox. As this motley crew tackles their toughest mission yet, they must learn to work together as a team to escape the evil Zurg and his dutiful robot army that are never far behind.
So the obvious gripe I have with this movie is the premise. The movie starts, and words appear on the screen saying this:
“In 1995 Andy got a toy. That toy was based on a movie. This is that movie."
Really Disney. Really.
I wouldn’t have a problem with this if the movie itself was charming and filled with good characters and a good story, but it’s not. So herein lies the problem: When a cheap idea like this is presented, it’s easy to make money off of. We have a returning beloved character (I guess? Because the Buzz in this movie technically isn’t the Buzz from Toy Story) connected to an already established franchise, so the work doesn’t really need to be put in. The heavy-lifting is over, which really shows in pretty much everything about this movie.
I think it really says something when you can take one of the most likable characters in Animation, and somehow make them borderline repulsive. Buzz is incredibly annoying for most of this movie. It’s not until the third act that he comes around, but before that, I was not rooting for him whatsoever. Chris Evans did a fine job as the character and made him bearable to an extent, but I really had a hard time caring about him for the majority of this movie.
The side characters here are pretty cookie-cutter and unlikeable as well. I found Taika Waititi’s Mo to be particularly hard to tolerate, but as for the rest of them, there’s really nothing too special about them. Sox played by Peter Sohn was a very welcome addition, and I thought his relationship with Buzz was cute.
This movie isn’t funny for the most part. I think there were one or two jokes that I chuckled at, but overall most of them fall utterly flat. It seems to me that the writing took the easiest way out in every way, and this was apparent from the very first scene. It’s so lazily put together, and without heart, it makes me sad that Pixar has fallen into the soulless chasm that is modern-day Disney.
Granted, this came around for me ever so slightly in the third act, after we pass over into Pixar’s classic third act where tensions are high and the character dynamics are better than ever. I felt that the most effort and care was put into it here, but as for the rest of the film, it’s almost as if they didn’t know how to fill the time.
The synopsis above is pretty far off of what this movie is actually about, and as I was watching this movie unfold, I couldn’t believe the direction they were taking the plot in. It’s such an oddly organized story that feels like the first draft of a screenplay. The length feels drawn out due to the pacing and the act structure, and I found it dragging pretty frequently.
The two things I can say that I enjoyed about this movie, without a doubt, are the animation and the score. This is one of the best-animated movies I’ve ever seen in terms of just how real everything looks, and it does take a moment here and there to really let you bask in just how good this looks, which I appreciated. The dust on surfaces, the sweat and dirt on people’s faces, it all just looks so clean, almost too clean sometimes. And I found the score by Michael Giacchino to really shine through every now and then, it helped uphold a sense of awe and wonder as you watch this beautifully animated movie, so if nothing else, these two things really stood out to me.
I really don’t dislike this movie, I’m just very indifferent towards it. I don’t think it’s offensive, I think it’s cute and that’s really about it. It’s wonderfully animated, and I can at least give Disney some credit for this strange and (somewhat) original concept. But, overall, it just didn’t work for me, especially since my standards for Pixar following 2020’s Soul are still very high.
5/10
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