Lightyear

 This review may contain spoilers!

 

Lightyear is presented to the audience as the film that Andy from Toy Story would've seen in cinemas. The film itself follows Buzz Lightyear, a Space Ranger who scouts out alien worls on behalf of Star Command. However, when he makes an error that maroons his entire crew on a scouting mission he gives an entire lifetime trying to find a solution to their malfunctioning hyperspeed crystal. This film has a really inspired first act once it really gets going. Watching Buzz realise that his hyperspeed test flights mean that a few minutes for him is a time jump of four years for the colony on the planet is a huge plot development. You get to see Buzz push himself to right his mistakes while missing the chance of living alongside the people he is working for, most significantly his friend and commander, Alisha. Seeing snapshots of Alisha's life as she takes charge of the colony, falls in love, has a child, grows old, becomes a grandmother and ultimately, perishes, is extremely moving. This woman is Buzz's inspiration and truest friend and he only sees glimpses of her and the love she gets to have, never quite being a part of it himself. The scene in which he comes back planetside to find her deceased is really moving and the emotional peak of the film. Beyond this watching Izzy try to measure up to her grandmother's legacy and Buzz's expectations of her is probably the most rewarding main character arc to watch in the film. The animation is right up to Pixar's high standards, I loved seeing the unique way they detailed the spaceships and space travel.

 

Chris Evans, who voiced Buzz Lightyear, really brings Buzz to more of an action hero vibe; Evans may not be the best Lightyear portrayal but he certainly leads the film solidly. Keke Palmer, who voiced Izzy Hawthorne, brings such enthusiastic energy to her role; Palmer portraying the insecurity her character has around not measuring up to her family name is so well portrayed. Uzo Aduba, who voiced Alisha Hawthorne, comes across as a charismatic leader who helms her expedition with great care; I loved the tender friendship developed between Aduba and Evans' roles. Isiah Whitlock Jr., who voiced Commander Burnside, is definitely a tougher brand of authority for the space colony; I loved how Whitlock really placed himself as a role that tended towards barking orders and making a show of force in a nice contrast to Aduba's role.

However, the best performance came from Peter Sohn, who voiced SOX. This is a small cat android designed to be akin to a therapy animal which is immediately endearing. Sohn presents this feline robot as gentle, softly spoken and attentive. The moments of learning and care he expresses to Buzz upon their initial introduction makes for one of my favourite onscreen friendships. I loved seeing this character persevere towards aid and assistance always, while steadily landing more brilliant quips the further into the adventure he got. Seeing Sohn's range of comedy by having him verbally make the robot sounds or generate parodies of cat behaviour was hysterical but also character-defining. SOX is a role that is designed to be liked because he is so compassionate and present for the other characters of the film; truly this is one of Sohn's finest voice performances yet.

I'm quite a big fan of Disney/Pixar films, which is far from a controversial stance. These studios have often been associated with the golden standard of animated films to a degree their competitors have always struggled to come close to. Over the past couple of years, we've watched a smattering of great Pixar features confined to a Disney Plus release instead of a chance to debut in theatres; features such as Soul, Luca  and Turning Red. Pixar has expressed frustrations around this, which is more than fair given the quality of these features. So to finally have a Pixar film debuting in cinemas should've been a treat, But the truth of it is, Lightyear is just a fine feature and probably their weakest offering in the past five years. The film starts rather rapidly, introducing Buzz and Alisha without doing any leg work on establishing them or anchoring them with much backstory. Something I think a lot of people are going to struggle with is Buzz himself; the character is tough to warm to at times. He takes things extremely seriously, often broods and is straight up rude to people he assumes is incompetent. The fact Buzz's entire character arc boils down to him realising he has to work with others better is rather disappointing when compared to the brilliant arc written for Izzy. The story feels quite generic in a lot of ways, Buzz is defending a valuable crystal the bad guy wants and after a lot of laser firefights Buzz gives up his mission/crystal in order to save his team from the robot baddie. The antagonist looks cool but doesn't ever feel like a major threat; especially not after his true identity is revealed. The film reveals that Zurg is none other than an older Buzz from an alternate timeline/future who wants to reset the mistake both Buzz's collectively made all those years ago. Trying to wrap your head around how older Buzz even works as a villain is a losing battle, nor is his big 'evil' plan really that despicable. In fact if Zurg had succeeded it might also have been seen as a good thing, but the film's moral around Buzz learning teamwork wouldn't have been realised. I also have to say after Giacchino's brilliant work on Spider-Man: No Way Home and The Batman it has been almost disappointing to hear his work on Jurassic World: Dominion and now Lightyear. The score throughout is peppy and light generic fanfare for your typical action-adventure flick which is all this animated story amounts to. Lightyear will eternally be dwarfed by Toy Story and the high quality of work we've come to expect from Pixar.

Taika Waititi. who voiced Mo Morrison, is one of the more underwhelming members of Lightyear's team; Waititi's character is only really defined by his cowardice and doesn't offer enough opportunity for Waititi's comedic range. Dale Soules, who voiced Darby Steel, is just present as two-dimensional comedic relief; but the crotchety old lady role has been done to death in better ways already. James Brolin, who voiced Zurg, is disappointing as the film's antagonist; Brolin does a poor impression of Evans' Buzz and never finds a way to make his depiction of Buzz menacing or relatable.

Lightyear informs us that this is the film that got young Andy from Toy Story to get himself a Buzz Lightyear toy, which is nonsense because clearly he'd want a SOX the Cat toy. I would give Lightyear a 6/10.