Toy Story 5

"All children talk to their toys," Charles Baudelaire once wrote, and "the toys become actors in a great drama of life, scaled down inside the camera obscura of the childish brain. And in games they reveal their considerable faculty of abstraction and high imaginative powers; they play without playthings..."

Anyone who has seen just about any of the Toy Story films knows this to be true. I was eight years old when the very first one was released in 1995, ushering in an era of computer-generated animation and accelerating the decline of traditional, hand-drawn animation in Hollywood. I can remember feeling like I had to be more careful about how I treated my toys; I didn't want to end up like the malicious Sid dealing with a vengeful uprising. Much has changed since then, yet this franchise remarkably carries on. It's sad that some of the old gang are missing; some—like Don Rickles, Estelle Harris, and Jim Varney—have passed away, while others—like Timothy Dalton—have mysteriously been replaced. (They are replaced by Jeff Bergman, Anna Vocino, Blake Clarke, and John Hopkins, respectively.) But Tom Hanks and Tim Allen as Woody and Buzz (who were really at the height of their power way back in '95) are still here, though they surprisingly take more of a backseat in the action to Jessie, the cowgirl who joined them in Toy Story 2 in 1999; she's really the heart of this film. 

In Toy Story 5, Jessie (Joan Cusack) is still with Bonnie (Scarlett Spears), the adorable little girl who inherited Andy's toys in Toy Story 3 in 2010. She's still joined by companions Rex (Wallace Shaw), Hamm (John Ratzenberger), Forky (Tony Hale), and others, putting on elaborate productions that occupy vast space in her imagination. The problem, however, is that Bonnie, now age eight, struggles to make friends and isn't sure why. Neither are her parents. Upon investigating, however, Jessie soon discovers the reason: technology. Every house in the neighborhood is inhabited by children who are glued to screens instead of outside playing. Bonnie has been spared from screen addiction (for now). Her parents are concerned, and they become convinced that the solution can be found in their daughter getting her own device. In this case, it's a frog-themed iPad-style device called Lilypad (or "Lily" and voiced by Greta Lee), a smart device which hosts a cloud-based realm of avatars that Meta could only dream of. Like users of Meta's platforms, children like Bonnie become addicted almost immediately. While the film doesn't dwell on it too much, adults (especially parents) will probably watch what happens to her with complete horror as she becomes moodier and more combative. Lily does nothing to solve her anxiety; it only augments it.

In a surprisingly convoluted plot, Jessie goes on a hero's journey to try and separate Bonnie from these devices while also helping her find a human friend. She'll need the help of her companions Buzz and Woody along the way, who argue a bit (in a subplot that is never fully fleshed out) about who is her true deputy. Things go awry, and the gang gets split up—Jessie ends up at her former home (though her human, Emily, famously lost interest in her) where a new family lives. There, she meets and initially detests a group of retro tech-based toys like Snappy (a toy camera voiced by Shelby Rabara), Atlas (a GPS hippo toy voiced by Craig Robinson), and Smarty Pants (a toilet-training toy voiced by Conan O'Brien). Woody and Buzz remain at Bonnie's, where they try and take care of Lily. 

One of my initial reactions was that the film doesn't have the same punch that recent entries have, that, despite its noble intentions, Toy Story 5 doesn't hit as hard as one thinks it would. I may have spoken too soon. By now, there have been numerous articles in everything from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal about the parental fight against omnipresent devices in school settings. Children don't read those newspapers, but they do watch Pixar movies. One parent now claims that her young daughter won't touch her device since seeing it. Just as I and other then-young children were afraid of becoming Sid thirty years ago, now hopefully children of today will be positively impacted by this film. In that respect, you owe it to your children to show them this film. 

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The Santa Clause

Of course Tim Allen plays a toymaker in a movie in which he is forced to become the new Santa. What other job could he have? Allen plays a toy creator named Scott Clavin, and this is one of the funniest of his performances. He has as much biting sarcasm as you would want from him, at a time when he was a king of comedy. His show Home Improvement was still on the air (and there are a few Home Improvement Easter Eggs spread throughout the movie), Toy Story was released the previous year, and the first sequel three years after that. He was the lead in the Star Trek spoof Galaxy Quest. Unfortunately, as soon as the new century came, he struggled a bit more, and perhaps not many things have demonstrated this better than the two less-than-successful sequels, none of which I have seen and likely never will.

In The Santa Clause, Scott is a divorced man who is going to spend Christmas Eve with his son, Charlie (Eric Lloyd). Scott frequently bickers with his ex-wife, Laura (Wendy Crewson), even if Charlie overhears it. (Like Mrs. Doubtfire the year before it, this movie handles divorced parents and their children mostly well.) Scott is also antagonistic towards his ex-wife's new partner, Neil (Judge Reinhold) and especially his job. "He's not a doctor," he angrily complains, "he's a psychiatrist." It's fair to say that he doesn't communicate with Charlie as well as Neil does, either, and perhaps he's jealous. Scott is not entirely prepared for Charlie's visit, as he burns the turkey so crispy, not even the Griswalds would eat it. Scott does the best he can, taking Charlie out to eat an Denny's ("an American institution"). He checks the other boxes (sort of) that are required -- he reads to Charlie The Night Before Christmas, tucks him in, and heads to bed, not before he has to answer a few more probing questions from his inquisitive son about the archaic language used in the famous story.

From here, things turn upside down for Scott and Charlie. Charlie hears a loud clatter (just as in the story) on their roof and is convinced it's Santa. Scott is more concerned that it's a burglar, and he rushes outside in only his jacket, boots, and underwear to find a man dressed as Santa on his roof. "Hey, you!"is all he can yell out before the mysterious figure slips and falls off his roof. It appears that Scott Calvin has killed Santa Claus. Charlie is not impressed. Cheer up, Charlie; there are actual reindeer on your roof.

If you can believe that Santa exists, falls off a guy's roof, disappears into thin air, and gives his job to some schmuck who caused him to fall, you can surely buy into the idea that said schmuck will put on the suit and do his best to dutifully be the substitute Santa just to get his son to stop whining. So he puts on the suit, and the reindeer and toy bag basically do most of the work for him. He squeezes down the chimneys and either has to escape security alarms and angry dogs or curious young children wondering why Santa is so thin and grouchy. Still, he does it. "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!" he shouts, before adding, "When I wake up, I'm getting a CAT scan!"

But the reindeer don't take him home. Where do they take him? To the North Pole, of course, where a cantankerous head elf named Bernard, played by David Krumholtz, explains to him how the rest of his life will be devoted to being Santa Claus, because of the Santa Clause, the part of the contract that basically says if you kill the existing Santa, you yourself take over. Scott protests, but as the year goes on, he has no choice. Charlie tells all his friends and family about how his dad is Santa, and Scott starts to slowly (and then rather quickly) transform into the big, jolly man, with his hair turning white and his weight rising. At first he starts to look like Chuck Norris, and then he very much starts to resemble Santa Claus. Charlie believes every last detail, but it's easy to see how every other adult would be disturbed at what they're seeing from a father and his son. (It could even be a horror film.)

This was a Disney film that wasn't afraid to use adult language occasionally In one moment, Scott audibly complains that he's "freezing his nuts off" outside trying to deal with the dead Santa situation. In another scene, Scott says to Laura that Neil's number where they can be reached is 1-800-SPANK-ME. The problem, though, was that parents started complaining that their children would call the number and be directed to messages promoting "hot, wild fun" for $2.50-$4.99 a minute. The scene is not included on home video release or when it plays on the Disney Channel.

If there's one universal truth to being an American child, it's that it is a bit disillusioning when one realizes that there is no Santa. Many of the adult characters in The Santa Clause share their own personal anecdotes of when they realized that Santa wasn't real. For Neil, it was when he didn't receive his Oscar Mayer Wiener Whistle. (For me, it was when Santa didn't complete the crossword puzzle I made for him when I was about nine, or nineteen--I can't remember.) At any rate, The Santa Clause has aged surprisingly well (except for the part when Scott, as he's almost full-Santa, catcalls a woman walking down the street.) That awkward, awful moment aside, this movie, a movie in which there actually is a Santa Claus, is a delightful film. I think I liked it as much, or perhaps even more, watching it as an adult.

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