Lightyear is the latest film by Pixar, it is set in the Toy Story universe, And it is the origin story of the reason the Buzz Lightyear toy wound up in Andy’s bedroom. since Andy’s Mom bought a Buzz Lightyear toy back in 1995 because he was the main character in Andy’s favorite film, which is this one, even though back in Toy Story 2, it was supposedly known that Buzz was from an Animated show from the 90’s. Anyway it’s a confusing concept that is explained right before the title card.
Lightyear for me was surprising, in the sense that it was a very unnecessary movie, sure, you could say it’s purpose is clear and that the movie had a good way of executing it. But to be honest, Lightyear left me with even more questions regarding both the story and its existence. If there were more characters in the story of Buzz like Sox or Commander Hawthorne then why weren’t they seen or even mentioned in the Toy Story franchise, they would also have toys right? but that’s too deep of a question, in reality, Lightyear was just there, nothing special or groundbreaking, it’s definitely an entertaining and fun movie but in the end it didn’t deliver anything memorable.
The movie is animated beautifully, every shot of it is extremely detailed and it looks very real, the facial expressions on the characters are on point and really come through in the emotional beats of the story, the character design is interesting as well and overall visually it was very pleasant. But the story felt so dull and generic, Buzz was probably the worst character in the film, considering his poor attempts at trying and the constant arrogance the character had, it still felt off to me, like he wasn’t fully there, I don’t really know how to feel about it.
Since most of my reviews are spoiler free (even though it’s been months since it was released) I’m not going to go much into the third act of the movie and the ending, but I am going to add that, for me the villain of the movie was the weakest threat possible, and the twist didn’t quite land like I expected it to land.
Lightyear was entertaining, it has its moments of charm and fun, but it ultimately doesn’t really land what it’s trying to say, the writing falls on itself sometimes, the humor isn’t bad but could’ve been better, and the overall concept of the movie wasn’t all that amusing, I recommend people to watch it, specially Toy Story fans, and to let you have your own opinion on it, since it’s a Pixar movie, the quality still is very high, and it will entertaining you. Lightyear is streaming now on Disney Plus.