Time has passed, and the toy's owner, Andy, has grown up and is off to college. Andy plans to box the toys in the attic, but instead they manage to get donated to a day care. There, they will be handled by children, the goal of every toy.
But the tots are too young and abuse the toys. Worse, at night the day care becomes a prison controlled by a toy hierarchy of treacherous teddy bear Lotso (Ned Beatty), a metrosexual Ken doll (Michael Keaton), and a giant baby doll. Meanwhile, Woody has escaped the day care to return to Andy, only to be found and claimed by post-toddler good girl Bonnie (Emily Hahn).
How others will see it. Toy Story 3 cost 200M to make, a remarkable sum for a computer animated film. But it was an unqualified success for both Disney and their subsidiary Pixar, grossing more than 1B worldwide before any video sales and rentals.
The reviews were glowing, helped by the goodwill of the first-rate prior two Toy Story efforts. At the Oscars, the movie received five nominations, most significantly in the categories of best picture and best screenplay. Such nods are scarce for comedies, let alone animated comedies. The film won two statuettes, for best animated feature and the one award it did not merit, for Toy Story veteran songwriter Randy ("Short People") Newman's "We Belong Together."
At imdb.com, the film is highly popular. It has about 200K user ratings with an extremely high and consistent average grade of 8.5, sufficient to place the film at #44 in the website's much promoted Top 250.
How I felt about it. It's a great movie. Not quite as great as the prior two films, particularly Toy Story 2, but great nonetheless. We can be grateful that the inter-Disney power struggle between Pixar and the less reputable Circle 7 had the right outcome.
The story, with its references to Cool Hand Luke, is exceptional. We have few objections. We never believed for one moment that the toys were going to be incinerated. It's unlikely that college-bound Andy (John Morris) would stop to play at length with neighbor child Bonnie, an act that in our suspicious age could get him arrested.
The surprise here is the comic romantic subplot between Barbie and Ken. The attraction is pure destiny, and the adult humor references to Ken's lack of masculinity provide the movie's best gags. Less amusing is the "Spanish" Buzz, where he assumes a Don Juan persona to the predictable thrill of Jessie. But alpha toy Woody doesn't seem to mind.