Pixar made a name for themselves as being able to expertly balance high emotion and well-pitched comedy without ever becoming manipulative or obvious with it. Toy Story 3 is the movie that pushed things too far. The emotional beats are built entirely on the pre-existing nostalgia an audience brings into the film, while the jokes don't fit within the world at all, thus failing to illicit any proper laughs - Mr. Tortilla Head wouldn't feel out of place in a lower-drawer Dreamworks flick. Oh, Toy Story 3 isn't a bad film - the visual style, particularly in the nightmarish Sunnyside Daycare, sets a perfect tone and the plot moves along at a speedy pace. It's just that, on the evidence of both the previous films in the series and what the studio had achieved up to this point, it's a film with a much weaker creative spark. The biggest problem is that its originality is stifled on a fundamental level; break it down and the film is essentially a remake of Toy Story 2. The overall moving on theme is nothing more than an expansion of the sentiments of Jessie's Song (albeit with a happier conclusion), while Sunnyside, with its friendly older toy and desperate escape plan, is a direct parallel to Al's scheme in the first sequel. The only deviation is the very ending, which sees Andy give up his toys, but that's unbelievable in its own right; as nice an ending to his story as it may be, it's hard to believe those are the actions of a real college freshman.
