Toy Story 2

Toy Story 2; CGI animated fantasy comedy, USA, 1999; D: John Lasseter, Lee Unkrich, S: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, Annie Potts

The toys live on in Andy's room. But one day Andy's mom places the old penguin toy in a box for sale. Cowboy Woody and the Slinky dog save the penguin, but himself falls into the box. There he is stolen by the greedy Al who collects old toys and sells them for millions in a Japanese museum. Buzz Lightyear and his friends starts a search and find Woody in a building. There he already made friends with the cowgirl toy Jesse and Pete. When he finally decides to return home, Pete stops hi while Al is heading towards the airport. Still, Woody and Jesse get saved.

"The movie is called "Toy Story 2" because it's twice as fun as the first film!", said the director John Lasseter. But judging by the finished result, it would have been more suitable if the movie had been called "Toy Story 1/2". Admittedly, it's a matter of a solid sequel that was a huge hit at the box office and (surprisingly) even won the Golden Globe as Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy, yet at times it doesn't even reach the knees of the hailed original that was quite stylish. The story suffers the most from naive and childish jokes - the best one of such sort is only the one where the toys stumble upon an obstacle, a ventilation grid, and thus force the dinosaur to "use his head" in order to ram and break it, and while they are carrying him he is shouting: "But I don't want to use my head!" - but the sequence of Jesse's memory of her former owner is very touching. A neat fairy tale with modest inspiration.

Grade:++