Movie Review: Lightyear

 

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

From three years ago, i reviewed Toy Story 4, that while its a nice return, but i felt that its unnecessary since Toy Story 3 was meant to be the end, despite my nitpick, it still a pretty good one, even if the ending really surprised us with bursting in tears. For nearly two decades, we always enjoy Toy Story from Pixar's very first film they ever brought us since 1995, sure the presentation isn't aged well, but even to this day, i love this movie so much since my childhood. But im sure some of you who're also had a fond memory of it. But one moment that really stuck to me before accepting the truth is our memorable secondary protagonist Buzz Lightyear, when he was introduced, he acts like a real life heroic space ranger from Star Command, but of course, Woody always telling him that not the point that he IS a toy than a real deal. But of course, since we love Buzz so much, its no wonder they planned to make a movie, for second time since direct-to-video in 2000.

"Lightyear" is a 2022 sci-fi action film that was written/directed by Angus MacLane, produced by Galyn Susman and co-written by Jason Headley and Matthew Aldrich (the latter of them for story).

Since 2000, Disney was interested to made a spin-off series of Toy Story involving Buzz Lightyear with direct-to-video movie "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins", which turns out to be a pilot movie to make show out of it, though i never seen the pilot or even the show itself, so its a different story. Anyway, after the success of Finding Dory (Which i consider a fun sequel, despite some flaws), MacLane was thinking for another Toy Story movie, though Pixar (as we with some actor like Tom Hanks) aren't sure for making another, since Toy Story 4 is meant for closing series as a movie, so he figured "Why not make a spin-off out of Buzz Lightyear, despite we already have one from TV show". So, this is like a re-telling of Buzz Lightyear than the show based different inclusion of characters, as well as planning to make a trilogy.

But since it was released before Disney+, while its well-received (aside of some issue), the movie didn't do well at the box-office with $222.6 million, sure its more than the budget of $200 million, its mainly due to this film was released in theater around the time when Top Gun Maverick was a huge deal, as well as the tiresome sequel of Jurassic Park "Jurassic World Dominion, or probably due to Buzz being re-casted as im aware before its release.

So, with all that said, will this movie bring us to Infinity and Beyond, or is this film has no sign of intelligent life anywhere.

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For a spin-off movie about Buzz Lightyear, you think the story is gonna be all about action impact to our main space ranger like a blockbuster, it may have a unique idea of the story, if it could've gone better for the writing.

It begins to explaining that this movie is dedicated to Andy (you know, the owner of Woody and Buzz Lightyear) wanted to have Buzz for his birthday thanks to this movie (huh, interesting reason for that, but i digress).

After the text, we're a space with exploration vessel landing on a planet T'Kani Prime, where we introducing Buzz Lightyear exploring on his own (along with narrating the same dialogue from the first Toy Story, nice gave me a flashback from my childhood favorite), though his best pal Alisha Hawthorne come long, with the rookie, but little did they know, is that the planet has a hostile living vines and bugs, so Buzz and his partners try to escape the planet to the vessel in order to leave, but Buzz, despite his effort to pull up, got a ship a massive scratch from the mountain and crashed on the ground, leaving them being stuck on this planet to repair and figuring a new missing by next year. A year after constructing a new colony with infrastructure to conduct repairs, Buzz is volunteers to testing a Hyperspace fuel, which is fly closer from the sun and head back to the planet, which is is the plan repairs, but once Buzz tried it out, (despite the problematic from his vehicle), it caused him to skip 4 years later that many people though that he's lost due to Time Dilation from relativistic speeds, around the struggle, he was gifted to have a robot feline cat named Sox and Alisha is having a family with Kiko and raising her kids (Yup, she's in fact, a lesbian family, but i've not problem with it), after passing 62 years of failing missions, despite he lost his beloved best pal Alisha from her old age with her room taken over by Commander Cal Burnside, Buzz refuses to give up the Hyperspace, thanks to Sox's help of combination of fuel's composition, despite breaking in the hangar that he got alerted, he tries again, which wouldn't he knew it, he succeeded for faster-than-light speeds, but it made him skipping 22 years later, where T'Kani Prime is invaded by Zurg's robots called "Zyclops", but Buzz was helped to be hiding by Izzy, who happens to be granddaughter from Alisha with her partners Mo Morrison and Darby Steel, its up to Buzz and his pals to find the way to defeat Zurg to stop the invasion.

The story itself is rather ok to going through the movie, a movie where Buzz is destined to complete the mission what he wanted for Star Command, especially what he can for Hawthorne and even save the planet from Zurg. I could appreciating for the story, but the problem is that the writing is kinda all over the place for switching tones and even unfocused narrative, that's the downside of this movie, the direction is all over the place that it doesn't know if its either Buzz's struggle, invasion mission or trying to have some pause with either giving an emotional and humor, which i will admit, some jokes did made me chuckle, but some really feels like they tried too hard and some emotional part did interest me, for the most part. I know this film is main to investing Buzz for how we connect, despite il get to the characters later on, but il give credit what they're going for Buzz's character arc.

While i appreciate for the investing the story, the character arc, the heart and funny moments, but its just the direction is making a mess that we had a hard time to figuring out for the narrative and some weak writing.

The Animation

Despite the issue of the writing and the direction, at least the animation looks fairly pretty good.

For starter, the background animation and the setting is perfectly fitting what we expected, since this movie is only taken place in T'Kani Prime, sure this planet is a mix of desert to exotic forest with hostile living vines and bugs, which they could've finding another planet to be 100% safe than this planet, but just just me, but then again, at least the planet is fine, as well as Star Command's colony, the vessel and even Zurg's ship

As for the designs and the effects, they look pretty damn good that make give a sorta 80's feel based on its colorful quality while in hyperspace test scene (But, don't get too much like Ludacris Speed, just ask Dark Helmet from Spaceballs), as well as some unique one with creative critter looking bugs and some funny vine attack. The character designs are always look pretty good, despite they always like to start with round default, but they is meant for realistic feel of the human designs like in Toy Story 4, sure Buzz looks almost the same as the toy-self, but more real than an action figure, even if he looks kinda like Chris Evans. Meanwhile, the robot design of Zyclops looks rather basic, but this is meant to be new look from the old Zyclops in Toy Story 2, of course, Zurg's design looks pretty damn cool, sure he has a same face from before, but in two times bigger robot size is pretty impressive, making him like a scary walking killing machine. Of course, the space rangers suits look pretty cool to give a respect from the toy version of Buzz Lightyear, cause you know what they say, you can't beat the classic, sure they can also give us a different color like red or blue after the signature green, white and purple, but then again, you can's beat the OG armor design.

I should also point out that what i watch in this movie on Disney+, this movie has IMAX Enhancement, which it automatically switch in fullscreen (though not in a square frame that i don't like it) and widescreen, which it depends its either we're in quite in widescreen and getting into action in fullscreen.

Of course, the animation's highlight of this movie is the action scenes, i have to say, the action scenes are pretty good to watch with all the dealing with hostile creatures in T-Kani Prime, Hyperspace test and of course the chase and shooting against either bugs and robots, its as if they wanted to make it feel like a space opera for animated movie, think Pixar's take of Star Wars, since its not just have blasters, but also including energy sowrd that its like a lightsaber, but without the force, its more focus of space rangers than jedi (Yeah, im gonna stop, since im a Star Wars fanboy).

The animation of this movie is pretty damn good for Pixar's take of sci-fi action with little bit of space opera element in this movie.

The Characters

When it comes to the character, i find them to be good, despite the movie focus our main protagonist as we all know.

Lets start with Buzz Lightyear himself (voiced by Chris Evans than Tim Allen, sorry guys), though he's pretty much like in Toy Story, but he's more serious than being a parody of a macho space hero as a toy, he's always being confident and always refusing to give up the mission for Star Command, at least what he really wanted to for his struggle. I find him a pretty good character and rather related, we always having an unfinished business that we refuse to give up for either our own will or even the order. As for Chris Evans tole of Buzz, i think he did a decent role, then again, he's no Tim Allen, but at least its what he's hired to playing as the alternate universe version of Buzz, its a kinda controversial for the recast, but at least he did a nice work of his role.

Next up is Sox the robot cat (voiced by Peter Sohn), he's Buzz's companion for helping him for the path and research, and as a comedic role, and i gotta say, he's both cute and funny robot cat in the movie, and Peter did a fun role as a comedic sidekick with Buzz, he easily give me cute chuckle for his both delivery of line and voice, at first, i wasn't as sure why Buzz has a cat, but when Peter delivered his role, he's worth of chuckling.

After that, we have Izzy Hawthorne (voiced by Keke Palmer) she's Alisha's granddaughter from passed 22 years later when Buzz surprisingly meets her. She's obviously the next generation to following her footstep from her grandmother, while she has confident, but pretty much ill-prepared, since again, she's meant to be the new space ranger, due to making huge mistake and fear of space. I find her not bad, despite she's rather over-confident to be like her grandmother, even though Keke did a nice work of her role.

Speaking of Hawthorne, we have Alisha (voiced by Uzo Aduba), a commanding officer and Buzz's best pal from the beginning that they both admire as partners for their journey, despite at one time that she brought the rookie, but in a right time for Buzz. And like i said before, she's also married in Lesbian. If one of you make a review bomb on her lesbian family, we like to tell three things: We Don't Care.

Nitpicking the controversy aside, she's quite fascinating one for both her family and her best partner with Buzz before her death from time-skip from Hyperspace that Buzz was trying. Sucks for her passing, but hey, i find her fascinating and Uzo also did a pretty good work of her role.

As for Izzy's partners, there's Darby Steel (voiced by Dale Soules) who's the older member of the group after being a parole convict who was sent into colonial defense forces thanks to her rebellious persona and Mo Morrison (surprisingly voiced by film director Taika Waititi) who's a clumsy idiotic rookie that, despite Taika did a good role, but his character role, not so much.

And finally, we have Zurg (voiced by James Brolin) who's a big ruthless warlord for invasion against any planets, along with plot twist villain cliché in typical Disney fashion, which we can all agree that the villains plot twist has gotten old very quickly that we've heard again and again, but im not gonna tell you the truth from SPOILER, while James is pretty good to playing as Zurg, but not for villain plot twist.

As for the rest of the characters, they're ok, whether or not they have purpose for the plot or not.

There's Commander Cal Burnside (voiced by Isiah Whitlock Jr.) who's taking over Alisha's office as the next man to build protection at colony with laser shield, and I.V.A.N (voiced by Mary McDonald-Lewis) who's the virtual assistant that i admit she's kinda funny, though i prefer Sox.

Quick fun fact, while promoting the movie and around before Monaco GP, another familiar F1 drivers coming in for voice dub cameo in this movie, this time, its the current two boys from Ferrari, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz jr. Im quite surprised and interested for their voice cameo, though im only watch the original English version. Aw well, its nice to hear them coming in the studio for their voice cameo in Italian for Leclerc and Spanish for Sainz jr.

While the characters may or may not as good for the writing, at lest the voice acting are pretty good.

And now for my final opinion of this film.

Overall, Lightyear is a pretty decent film, with amazing looking animation, some ok characters, pretty good action and has a good idea. However, if the idea would've gone better based on a wonky writing that its hard to follow narrative and questionable direction, but at least some jokes have some chuckles, especially with Buzz's cute and funny companion.

Does this movie is actually better than the pilot movie "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins"? Well, its an obvious yes, while the pilot movie is fine (though i never seen it), but came off as generic, if only if this movie was released as a TV movie than releasing VHS or DVD.

Is it a highly recommended? Well that depends on your thought, if you're a fan of Toy Story or a sci-fi adventure and action movie like this, i'd say its for you, it would've been perfect, but pretty flawed for the execution of the movie's idea, even if the movie could've been released at the right time to make movie that it received less compare to other movies around the time when Top Gun Maverick came out.

For that, im gonna give this movie a 7/10.

So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.