Toy Story 3 is an Awesome Cinematic Experience

On my birthday weekend, I finally managed to rustle up my family members to go watch Toy Story 3. As a family, we are not big on movies, and none of us have the same tastes. But, since it was my birthday, well…folks really did not have much choice other than falling into line.

I chose to watch Toy Story 3 simply because the snubnose was recently introduced to the book (see here), and of course the magic of 3-D, which all of us were going to experience the first time. Yes, our family is probably one of those who have probably been living under a rock impervious to the Avatar invasion. We probably visit the cinemas max of couple of times a year.

But when we do visit, we tend to enjoy ourselves to the hilt. Armed with tubs of popcorn, nachos, soda, and 3-D viewing glasses, we settled down to enjoy the movie.

And it’s an awesome movie. The story is really heart tugging. Andy the boy who owns the toys is all grown up and leaving for college. Before leaving, he has to clear out his room of all the junk (read childhood toys) that he has accumulated.

He decides to put all the toys into the attic for safe-keeping and take his favorite toy Sheriff Woody with him to college. Unfortunately, a mix-up causes the toys to be donated to a crèche nearby, which should not be a bad thing as the toys will get played with.

However, there is a big bully of a Teddy who rules the roost with an iron hand. He ensures that the toys are given to very young children who treat them very badly and leave them in grave danger of being broken. In addition, he changes Buzz Lightyear’s settings back to default (a toy version of a lobotomy). The toys now have to somehow escape the crèche and find a suitable home for themselves. Sheriff Woody comes to the rescue with a truly, imaginative plan and saves the day.

My Review

We loved every bit of this movie. The 3-D effects are excellent, but the real winner is the story and the characterizations. Each toy has its own unique character with its own set of strengths and weaknesses. Children (and adults) can learn a lot of lessons about teamwork looking at how well these toys work together to escape from the crèche. Sometimes, they do not agree with each other; there is a lot of conflict, but in the end they all come together to work as one unit.

I did feel very uncomfortable during the sequences where the mom/Andy are throwing out the toys. I am completely against hoarding, and I generally give toys when I know the snubnose has clearly outgrown them. My husband is the complete opposite. He is a proper hoarder who can’t throw anything out, and our house is a tribute to that ethos, full of all sorts of random things. Things he thinks he can fix, things he thinks might come in handy one day, things he can’t bear to part with. I leave his stuff alone for the most part to keep the peace in the house, but I am brutal with the snubnose’s junk.

During the movie, he kept giving me dirty looks as if to say look how cruel I am being throwing out all the old toys. In particular there was a scene with a broken telephone, which looked remarkably similar to the snubnose’s telephone that I had donated recently.

The snubnose didn’t particularly mind, but he did and after the movie got over he cross-questioned me very closely about that toy…hmmm, I better be extremely careful when I go around on cleaning-up rounds next time 🙂

Anyway…since my movie review has now degenerated into domestic ramblings, I better call it a day with this post and sign off saying if you haven’t seen this movie, do go see. Huge fun! Even if you have not watched Toy Story 1 and 2 (like I haven’t), you will still enjoy the movie.