He escapes, but Forky doesn’t, which means that it’s time for one of the franchise’s signature rescue-mission plots.

Sneaking inside in search of his lost love, a Bo Peep figurine (Annie Potts) who was in the first two Toy Story films but was absent from the third, Woody falls into the clutches of Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks), a damaged doll who has designs on his pull-string voice box. Woody does his best to persuade this tortured soul that being a toy can be as rewarding as being a disposable utensil, but he is distracted by the sight of a small-town antique shop.

Forky bleats that he is “trash”, and keeps throwing himself into bins and out of windows, a pseudo-suicidal habit that is both hilarious and macabre. Straight after Bonnie’s return from nursery, she and her parents go on holiday in a rented camper van, taking her toys with them. But, like a bored child, it soon discards them and sends its characters off on a madcap adventure, just as Up did. You could say that Toy Story 4 plays with these ideas. It is here that the film articulates the gut-pummelling anxiety a parent feels when their child first goes to school (admittedly, an anxiety which Pixar addressed in Finding Nemo, too), and here that it asks questions about identity and independence – and how exactly these magical playthings can walk and talk, anyway. As unlikely as that last twist might seem, it isn’t impossible: my own daughter was once distraught when she lost her favourite toy, Spoony the plastic spoon.Īs in Pixar’s Up, the most powerful part of Toy Story 4 is its opening 15 minutes. She names this freakish creation Forky (Tony Hale), and, to Woody’s surprise, not only does he come to life, he becomes Bonnie’s most treasured possession. Woody, of course, stows away in her backpack, but Bonnie constructs a friend of her own out of a white plastic spork, a red pipe-cleaner and a wooden lollipop stick. To make matters even more stressful for the highly-strung cowboy doll, Bonnie has to go to nursery school, and her parents insist that she leave her toys at home. Cannes 2019 review: Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood.Now that the boy from the previous three Toy Stories, Andy, has gone to university, the toys he grew up with belong to Bonnie, a little girl who usually leaves Woody in the cupboard while she plays with everyone else. It’s a smaller, less moving, and mercifully, less traumatising entertainment than the last one, less satisfying in its plotting and less provocative in its themes. On the other hand, if Toy Story 4 doesn’t tarnish the series, it doesn’t polish it either.

Instal the new for ios Toy Story 4