22 Jun 2022

Review: Lightyear

From At The Movies, 7:30 pm on 22 June 2022

The prequel or origin story of the bumptious spaceman in Toy Story, Buzz Lightyear, is part whiz-bang movie for 10-year-olds, part rallying cry for the under-represented in 2022.

Lightyear -  Does it take you to infinity and beyond? Not quite.

The Toy Story films pushed their luck incredibly successfully, some might say.  After not one but three popular sequels, you’d expect the Pixar people might have called enough. 

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Photo: Pixar

But no. After very little popular demand, you’d think, here comes a film entirely devoted to Buzz Lightyear.

Not the plastic toy, but the film that spawned the plastic toy, we’re told at the start. Toy-owner Andy bought the Lightyear figure after seeing what became his favourite movie ever.  

And this is it. The star of the brilliant Toy Story’s favourite movie ever. So, no pressure then.

For some reason, Chris Evans has taken over voice duty from the original Tim Allen, though you can’t see the join.

Buzz Lightyear is part of a crew of star-trekkers who’ve crashed on a distant planet. A planet of rogue vegetation that keeps grabbing people.

They think they’ve found a way off the Planet of the Creepers, and all it needs is for Buzz Lightyear - space test pilot - to see if it works. 

He takes off, comes back four minutes later, only to discover that years have passed on the planet. But he takes off and does it again. And again.

Yes, relative time travel, with everyone getting older and greyer except Buzz. 

I’m not sure if this is quite what your average 7-year-old audience wants to see.  I am sure that the 7-year-old audience I saw it with started chatting among themselves at this point.

Anyhoo, Buzz finally returns to discover that his old boss – cool, Black, lesbian Commander Hawthorn - is no longer with us, and the whole space camp has been invaded by gigantic robots.

At this moment my audience perked up a bit. They do like gigantic robots.

And Buzz meets a stray group of freedom fighters, led by Commander Hawthorn’s plucky grand-daughter Izzy.

Well, I say freedom fighters. More would-be, beginner freedom fighters. Junior Woodchucks, if you will.

And Mo - played by Taika Waititi almost inevitably in a Disney film - is a middle-aged dingbat who looks – well, looks exactly like Taika Waititi. 

As always, he plays the one character in Lightyear that kids whole-heartedly like.

As for the rest, it feels both underdone and overthought, particularly by Pixar’s usually sky-high standards. 

I never thought I’d say this about a film from that studio, but it was deeply disappointing. 

I understand the desire to represent the under-represented in a popular film.  But first you’ve got to try and make a popular film.

I can’t imagine this ever being a kid called Andy’s favourite movie. Or indeed anyone’s.

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