November 25–December 2, 1999

movie shorts

Toy Story 2

by Vance Lehmkuhl

Better to have been loved and lost than never to have been loved at all. That’s the moral of Toy Story 2, an eager-to-please sequel that ratchets up the emotional stakes in a bid to top the groundbreaking original. Toy Story played deftly on the simple themes of old vs. new and the importance of community, with its main villain an irredeemably evil child. Toy Story 2, though, probes the downside of good child-toy relationships: What happens to a toy whose owner is no longer a child?

In the case of Woody (the big-eyed cowboy voiced here as in the original by Tom Hanks), it’s not that Andy, his owner in the original Toy Story has grown up (the movie begins shortly after the end of the first), but that his new "owner" is an adult, a slimy, soulless toy collector who’s stolen him from Andy’s yard in order to complete a valuable set.

This sets the plot in motion, as Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen’s ample-chinned space ranger) leads the also-rans (Mr. Potato Head, Hamm, Slinky Dog, T. Rex) on a heroic rescue mission. But it also plants Woody in an ethical quagmire involving his new collectible friends. It turns out that Woody was the star of a ’50s TV show called Woody’s Roundup, and his arrival not only springs the show’s other toys from storage-chest bondage, but that they (cowgirl Jessie, horse Bullseye, and Slinky Pete the Prospector by name) see him as the link in a long-broken chain. Trouble is, this tear-jerking torn-between-two-toyboxes dilemma skews the tone of the movie as a whole, undercutting the freewheeling comedy and adventure. The sequel fails to outdo the original precisely because it tries so hard to do so.

Still, compared with almost any other modern-day feature cartoon, this is one hell of a movie, brimming with much of Toy Story’s witty zip and sass, and making constant knowing references to its sequel status. Technologically, the new movie wastes no time showing off with an astonishingly real puppy, then immediately brings in Andy and his mom, who are stubbornly identical to their formerly low-tech, soft-vinyl selves — as they must be in a cartoon sequel. Once again, the Pizza Planet delivery car shows up at an opportune moment, and the departing moving van which figured in the last film’s finale is here promoted to a departing plane. Director John Lasseter and most of the original’s writers have returned, along with the voices of Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, John Morris and Laurie Metcalf.

There are artistic flourishes, too, along with the allusions: The chess player from the short preceding A Bug’s Life shows up here as a toy repairman/cleaner, and a scene where he gently cleans Woody’s eye with a Q-Tip provides a moment of unexpected tenderness.

But the most fascinating reference to/reversal of the original is Woody’s epiphany. Like Buzz, Woody discovers the truth of his existence while standing in front of a TV set. But where Buzz discovered that he was only a toy — that his entire astronaut-based reality was fictitious — Woody finds out he’s more real than he had ever guessed. The discovery of Woody’s Roundup’s existence gives him a sense of purpose which he had never missed before.

The messianic angle — call it the Second Coming of Woody — is handled with spry, subtle wit, but in the end there’s more emotional weight to the subplot than the story really needs. Woody’s happy-go-lucky attitude is no match for his more ponderous situation. And by the last scene, the themes have grown too large to be lassoed by his "have fun while it lasts" moral. Toy Story succeeded and made an indelible mark because it sidestepped the predictable and took risks. Its successor continues the tradition, ultimately biting off more than it can chew. But never has something half-chewed tasted this good.