Toy Story 2

The next entry in “Disney’s Pixar Month” is the 1999 sequel, “Toy Story 2,” the first sequel Pixar ever did, surprisingly in their beginning years.

Roger Ebert started his review out by saying, “I forgot something about toys a long time ago, and "Toy Story 2'' reminded me. It involves the love, pity and guilt that a child feels for a favorite toy. A doll or an action figure (or a Pokemon) is yours in the same way a pet is. It depends on you. It misses you. It can't do anything by itself. It needs you and is troubled when you're not there.”

“Toy Story 2” knows this, and for children watching this that knows this to be the most important aspect of the film – more important than the story or the ability to animate. This is a movie about what you think your toys do when you’ve left the room – and what you fear. They have lives of their own, but you are the special person in their lives, and when you treat them horribly, you hurt their feelings.

The film starts off with Andy, the boy who owns all of our favorite toy characters, leaving for summer camp. Cowboy Woody has a torn arm and gets left behind. This is saddening to Woody, but everything gets worse when he is taken from a garage sale by Big Al the toy collector, voiced by Wayne Knight, repaired, repaired and repainted – and set to be sold to a toy museum in Japan.

At first this sounds enjoyable for Woody, who discovers that he is part of a toy franchise, the Roundup Gang, which also includes a cowgirl named Jessie (Joan Cusack), a horse named Bullseye (Frank Welker) and a prospector named Stinky Pete (Kelsey Grammer). Woody is mesmerized when he sees that he starred in a black-and-white TV puppet show in the ‘50s, and starts to think that Andy will eventually grow and no longer play with him, he should just go to the toy museum and become a hot attraction.

Meanwhile, Buzz Lightyear and the other toys find out what has happened and go own a dangerous mission across town to rescue Woody. We start to see visions of what goes on inside the toys heads. If you look at Stinky Pete, he’s harsh because he was never bought, and he’s still in his original package. Jessie is spirited and open-minded, but she does feel sad. She sings the pleasant When She Loved Me (Mary Kay Bergman) about her former owner Emily, who threw her under the bed and forgot her. “You never forget kids, but they forget you,” Buzz sighs, but he argues for actually getting the chance to be loved for as long as the childhood lasts than appreciated behind glass in a museum.

The movie once again has the fascinating three-dimensional look of computer-generated animation by Pixar, and was directed by John Lasseter, the creator of the first “Toy Story.” Ebert noted, “The tale of this film is almost as thrilling as Woody's fate: It was originally intended as a lowly direct-to-video release, but then the early scenes played so well that Pixar retrenched and started over again with a theatrical feature. In other words, this isn't a made-for-video that they decided to put into theaters, but a version intended from the first to be theatrical. That's important, because it means more detail and complexity went into the animation.”

The voice actors definitely look like they remember how they once identified with toys. Many of the actors from the first movie are back again, including Tom Hanks as Woody, Tim Allen as Buzz, Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head and the late Jim Varney as Slinky Dog. The main newbie is Joan Cusack as Jessie the Cowgirl, and she brings new life to the cast by going up against the others for the first time with a female character who’s a little less local than Mrs. Potato Head, voiced by Estelle Harris.

Hanks is the highlight for quite possibly the memorable part of the movie. He sings You’ve Got a Friend in Me, and looks like he’s talking to every toy all over the world. Ebert credited, “His Woody has, indeed, grown into quite a philosopher. His thoughts about life, love and belonging to someone are kind of profound.” The screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Rita Hsiao, Doug Chamberlain and Chris Webb isn’t just a sequence of explorations (despite having a handful of those) but somewhat of an inside job, in what we find out that every toy thinks the way every kid knows his toy thinks.

I’m not going to lie, this is another one of my favorite “Pixar” movies. I absolutely love this one, and I think it’s better than the first. If you have seen the first movie, definitely don’t miss the chance to see this one. You will love this more, I promise you. The meaning of toys is perfectly brought to life in this movie, and you will feel like Andy and how you used to be just like him when playing with your action figures.

Check in tomorrow for one of the best “Pixar” films, which I’m definitely looking forward to, in “Disney’s Pixar Month.”