Lightyear Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs
Lightyear is fun to a point, but struggles to justify its own existence.
Pixar returns with their second and final feature film release of 2022 - following Turning Red back in March - and their first movie to get a theatrical release since Onward back in early 2020.
Toy Story spin-off Lightyear, styled as the movie that inspired Andy's Buzz Lightyear obsession back in 1995, is out now around the world, and the critical reception so far has been broadly positive - albeit with some major caveats.
Indeed, Lightyear is a decent way to pass the time - a moderately enjoyable film albeit one that does a lot less to make itself feel "necessary" to the Toy Story canon than you might expect.
The irony, as some critics have already noted, is that Lightyear feels like far more of a Disney+ movie than the likes of Soul and Turning Red in particular - a not-bad offering with some gorgeous visuals, yet held back from being anything close to greatness by its underwhelming script.
Needless to say, if you're hoping for a sci-fi adventure on the level of the Toy Story movies, your expectations need to be massively lowered, because this is far from the studio's strongest output - in fact, almost quite the opposite.
For any other animated studio that'd certainly be good enough, but let's face it: Pixar's spoiled us so much over the years that anything less than great just feels a bit deflating.
And so, here's what Lightyear doesn't get right...