Lightyear (Me) (Kids)

Another rainy day, we're trapped inside with a train set, so a family outing to the cinema was suggested. The film? Lightyear, a spin-off from the Toy Story Pixar franchise, and in my unpopular opinion, it's the best of the lot. I wasn't expecting too much as I'm not a fan of the series and I kept waiting for it to go full cheese or drip feed schmaltz all over the place but this was a fun treat. According to the briefly titled backstory, this is a film that the kid who owns the toys in Toy Story watched, which then presumably drove him to buy the toy Buzz. An that's all there is to link the films. Great.

The plot proper begins with a space ship piloted by Buzz deviating to a planet, getting stuck there, and henceforth attempting to get home. In fact, the film powers through a few distinct events that almost fill the three act structure - getting stranded, attempting to crack the hyperspace crystal dilemma, dealing with a robot alien threat - all of which don't hang about (I guess to fit into a child's attention span window). Buzz Lightyear, as voiced by Cap. Am. himself, Chris Evans, is proud yet riddled with doubt and guilt about his role in getting stuck on the planet - he's more cocksure as a toy in the original films.

There's solid work by Keke Palmer and Taika Waititi as part of a motley crew of unlikely defenders but the pick would have to be Peter Sohn as robot cat SOX - unexpected snickers thanks to this cat, especially its operating noises. There's a sweet connection to Interstellar, relating to the hyperspace test runs, and themes that are often laid on with a heavy duty brick trowel are thankfully applied lightly in this film. It seems to be advocating teamwork, not being too proud to accept help when required and not beating yourself up about perceived flaws - all level-headed stuff from Pixar. 

The final section, particularly the Zurg reveal, was perhaps the most predictable and formulaic but it was handled well enough without going too heavy for kids. Maybe the sci-fi setting was up my specific space alley but I found Lightyear to be cut above most animated fare of recent times. 

See also:

Obviously, Christopher Nolan's Interstellar (2014) shares some DNA, and Andrew Stanton's Wall-E (2008) is another great space Pixar film.