This review may contain spoilers.
This is a positive review. I promise. But… …I think I’m suffering from a little franchise fatigue with Toy Story, and that isn’t really the movie’s fault. It’s mine. I wasn’t excited about this one going in. Thirty years and five movies will do that. At some point every big franchise starts carrying the weight of its own legacy, and fortunately for all of us, this one handles that about as well as it possibly could. The premise is genuinely clever. Instead of pretending kids still play with toys the way they did in 1995, Pixar asks the obvious question: what happens when the toys aren’t competing with other toys anymore, they’re competing with screens? The villain, if you can even call her that, is basically an iPad named Lilypad. Bonnie slowly stops playing with her toys, not because she doesn’t love them, but because that’s how kids socialize now. Her classmates live through their devices, and if you’re not in that world, you’re left out. That’s a very real anxiety for modern parents, and Pixar taps into it well. What I appreciated most is that it never becomes a “technology bad” lecture. It’s about balance. Kids still need imagination and unstructured play and each other, and that’s a worthwhile story to tell in 2026. Ironically, the movie also highlights why this franchise doesn’t hit me emotionally anymore. The original Toy Story was already nostalgic. It was about old toys being replaced by new ones. Now we’re thirty years past that movie and these same toys are still fighting to stay relevant, and the problem is I don’t have nostalgia for their nostalgia. My generation didn’t grow up with pull-string cowboy dolls or Space Ranger action figures. Those toys felt old-fashioned when I was a kid. Asking me to feel wistful about them decades later just doesn’t land. None of that makes it a bad movie. The direction is strong, the pacing works, and the screenplay modernizes the franchise without betraying it. Jessie steps naturally into a bigger leadership role. I did miss Woody, though. I understand why he was sidelined after Toy Story 4, but he’s my favorite character, and any Toy Story movie is a little less special when he isn’t driving the story. I’m also not convinced every Buzz subplot needed to exist. Some of it felt engineered to sell a specific version of the Buzz toy. But that’s kind of the joke, isn’t it? People love pretending franchises like Transformers, G.I. Joe, He-Man, and Toy Story exist in some artistic vacuum. They’ve always been tied to toys. So if Pixar wants to introduce a drone Buzz Lightyear that kids immediately beg their parents for, that’s on brand. And honestly, drone Buzz is kind of badass. It’s the fantasy the original Buzz always thought he was living. I’ll admit I’m probably not the ideal audience anymore. I’m not a kid and I don’t have kids, and I suspect this movie hits much harder if you’re watching Bonnie’s relationship with screens play out in your own house instead of observing it from the outside. Parents will see themselves in it, and that’s exactly what this franchise needed. Personally I enjoyed Minions & Monsters a little more, but Toy Story 5 is probably gonna the bigger hit, and it does exactly what it sets out to do.