Toy Story 2

It was pretty rewarding to plan this expedition, actually; we had five people: Me, Tom, both Bens, and Bill. Two other people had planned to join us, but bowed out when one of them had a worse-than-expected trip to the dentist. We got together in Mountain View and had Indian food, and then got to the theatre just in time, but there were not many people there, so we easily got tickets and there were plenty of seats.

Well gee, what can I say? It's a very good film. This time around, the cowboy toy Woody (voice of Tom Hanks; since it's computer animation, all the actors are voice actors) is opportunistically stolen by a toy collector (Wayne Knight) who plans to sell him to a Japanese museum for exhibit with other toys from his set, as it turns out that Woody is a highly collectible toy from the 1950s. Meanwhile, Woody's friend Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) organizes other toys to rescue Woody, and they march 19 blocks to the site of the collector's toy store, encountering the many denizens therein (including Tour Guide Barbie and a host of Buzz Lightyears).

But, when they eventually catch up to Woody, they find that he's not so sure he wants to go back with them to his owner, Andy, especially after a moving testament by his counterpart toy, Jessie (Joan Cusack), about her owner growing up and giving her away as a donation, and the heartbreak she felt over that.

As with the first film, Toy Story 2 is a film about friendship and responsibility, albeit from an unusual point of view. This time the shoe's on the other foot, as it's Buzz who goes to rescue Woody rather than the other way around. But the plot still stems from Woody's foibles; although he's the respected leader of Andy's toys, he's also terribly insecure when not in his familiar surroundings. But whereas Buzz always owns up to his responsibilities instantly, Woody's convictions feel more genuine because he has to fight to learn what he feels and what things are important to him.

And, of course, the film is just plain fun. With an all-star cast (Kelsey Grammer, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Annie Potts, and others) supplying supporting voices, the film also sports great animation, with all the feeling and movement of the first, but much lusher renderings, especially when it comes to reflections. At one point, Woody is being repaired and fixed up to go to Japan, and you can see the reflections appear in his eyes as they're cleaned and polished. The animators show all the attention to detail of hand-drawn cartoons, but can take advantage of their medium to portray complex shots from many different angles, as it done with a floor covered with Cheetos.

The script is right-on through most of the film, with slapstick humor backed up with more sophisticated jokes for the adults (a riff on The Empire Strikes Back and a penguin doing a Sinatra turn). It's not quite as fall-down funny as the first, and yet how can you resist lines like the green alien things saying, "Use the wand of power"?

Go see it. And if you haven't seen the first one, rent it first.

There was also a promo for an upcoming film called Dinosaur, which looks like a CGI-based story taking place in the age of reptiles, possibly without humans at all (there are none in evidence in the clip). While the dinosaurs at the beginning of the clip looks rather artificial (plastic, one person said), the sequence gets much better as it goes on, following a stray plant-eater's egg making its way around an island following a predator's attack on its mother's herd. It looks geared at least a bit towards children (no blood or gore), but it had some wonderful scenes of herds of dinosaurs grazing on a vast plain which left me thinking, "Yes! This is what it must have been like!"

Jurassic Park left me cold because it had these great effects serving a lousy, gratuitous story. Maybe this film will be more what the dinosaur-loving kid in me wants to see.