Film Review — Lightyear
Toy Story-adjacent spin-off falls considerably short of top-tier Pixar
Onscreen text at the start of Lightyear informs viewers that in 1995, a boy called Andy was given a Buzz Lightyear for his birthday; a toy inspired by a film. Lightyear is that film. Thus, the tenuous link with the original Toy Story is established, and thus begins an entirely superfluous to requirements animated feature. It’s a shame that after a two year stint in Disney+ purgatory, Pixar’s return to the big screen is with this film, rather than the far superior Soul, Luca, and Turning Red, all three of which were robbed of their moment in the cinematic sun by straight-to-streaming ignominy.
In fairness, Lightyear isn’t bad exactly. It’s just deeply unnecessary and utterly unremarkable. As a whizz-bang space adventure, it works well enough on its own undemanding terms. But as an adjunct to a beloved series of films, the first three of which are rightly considered classics, it’s an exercise in pointlessness akin to making Chubby Rain — the film within a film in Bowfinger — for real.
The plot concerns space ranger Buzz Lightyear being responsible for a starship crash landing on an alien world filled with nasty giant bugs and malevolent tentacled plants. Fixing the situation — and thus preventing hundreds of people from being marooned —…
