DVD Release
UK - 22nd November 2010
US - 2nd November 2010
Audience Reaction
"I attended a special screening for Toy Story 3. I went in with HIGH expectations. I LOVED the first two Toy Stories movies. Toy Story is a beloved franchise that almost everyone that I know loves the first two films. Now how about the 3rd film? Well all I could say is that it lived up to my unbelievably HIGH expectations and then some. This is such a good film. It has the laughs, magic and best of all the entertainment. The new characters in the movie feel like they were in the previous two films, they were that engaging and really worked well in the movie. The best part of the movie has to be the ending, I almost cried and was moved to just about to tears. I truly believe that this is one of the best Trilogies of all time. It might even rival the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
This movie has a real chance to become the First Animated Film to win Best Picture. I surely would not be surprised.
10/10 An Amazing End to a Fantastic Series Go Watch It "
- An IMDB user
"Well, this lived up to the hype, which usually isn't an easy accomplishment. Toy Story 1 & 2 set the bar high so, frankly, I was expecting a disappointment with this one. Thankfully, it didn't happen. "Toy Story 3" was another amazing story in this (so far) trilogy.
With a bunch of reviews already here, there is no sense going into the story. For those who haven't seen it yet, three surprises stood out for me: (1) the high number of new characters introduced; (2) the darkness of some of them; this is not always a fun story; (3) the incredibly-touching last 15-or-so minutes.
All three of these facets should make this a fun 103 minutes every time I watch the DVD, much like the first two. Also, the artwork is at the usual high standard, especially some scenes in the last half hour at the dump yard, of all places.
Finally, what's really cool, too, is that the people who voice the main characters are still the same men and women who did the first two films, with the exception of Jim Varney ("Slinky Dog"), who died in 2000. It's great to still hear familiar and distinctive voices, such as those of Wallace Shawn ("Rex"), John Ratenzenber ("Hamm"), Don Rickles and Estelle Harris ("Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, respectively).
Kudos to all those involved in making this film. They nailed the essence of "Toy Story" and how much loyalty can mean."
-An IMDB user
"Nothing deserves its U certificate less than this: Toy Story 3 is a brutally adult movie with brutally adult themes: the origin of evil in childhood pain, the death of childhood and, well, just death. There are scary villains and intensely, unbearably sad moments. Earlier this year, I wrote here, online, about how having a child of my own opened my eyes to the true and terrible meaning of the Toy Story movies, and particularly cowgirl Jessie's heartrending song When She Loved Me in Toy Story 2, describing how her mistress gradually fell out of love with her as she became a teenager.
Before I became a parent, I had vaguely thought that song was a parable for the child's fear of abandonment. Watching it recently again as a dad, I experienced something between an epiphany and a nervous breakdown. Like the theologian crazed by his theory of the New Testament in Borges's short story Three Versions of Judas, I was gibberingly convinced that I, and I alone, understood the real meaning of the Toy Stories; John Lasseter had spoken directly to me. We, the adults, are the toys. One day, our children will get bored
playing with us. They won't want to be cuddled by us; they won't want to confide in us; they will go away and leave us. It will never be the same again. The toys in Toy Story 3 are sent away to a daycare centre where they are victimised and mistreated – just like the infantilised inmates of an old people's home.
TS3 undoubtedly takes its cue from TS2's gloomy visions of mortality and obsolescence, and amplifies them in ways that, though not as brilliant and novel as the second movie, are tremendously inventive and, yes, powerfully sad. The melancholy that was largely compressed into When She Loved Me is now diffused throughout the film, but it is still superb, and the opening sequence is as thrilling, funny and visually gorgeous as anything in the Pixar canon.
We join the story as Andy, 17, is about to go up to college. Sentimentally loyal to his boyhood self, he intends to take Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) with him as a mascot and store the rest, including Buzz (Tim Allen) in the attic – but a mixup means they all get taken to a daycare centre. At first delighted by the prospect of playing with real kids once more, the gang find the roost is ruled by an evil bully: the insidiously cute Lotso-Huggin' Bear, voiced by Ned Beatty, who turns the centre into a jail like the one in Cool Hand Luke. He has a horror-movie-style sidekick in the form of Big Baby, a chilling, dead-eyed enforcer.
The humour, the drama, everything in the film seems targeted more at the parents than the children: certainly those cheeky hints at the metrosexual proclivities of Barbie's true love, Ken, with his scarf and blow-dried hair. That said, it's an effortlessly superior family movie. We grownups, however, may have to gulp back our tears and somehow keep it together in front of the kids: just like the toys who revert to blank grins when their owners come back into the bedroom."
- The Guardian
"Age creeps up on us all, even the plucky cast of Toy Story 3, who are terrified of the trash-can now that their doting owner Andy has grown up and is headed for college. He wants to take Woody with him and consigns Buzz Lightyear and his colleagues to a bag in the attic, but a mix-up finds them heading for the dump, only to inveigle a reprieve as a nursery-school donation.
After being thumped and torn by toddlers, they realise that the head honcho in the nursery toy hierarchy – a strawberry-smelling bear called Lots-o’-Huggin’ – is much more sinister than he seems.
The 3D animation is glorious, and the plot turns are relentlessly witty, from the love affair between a discarded Barbie and a wonderfully camp Ken, to the scene in which Mr Potato Head has to make do with a floppy tortilla for a body.
There are emotions, too: the melting moment when the toys link hands and stare bravely down into the garbage furnace is the nearest I’ve come to feeling sentimental all week."
- Seven Magazine review, by Jenny McCartney
