Toy Story 4 tugs at the heartstrings

One important word of advice: don’t leave the theatre until the film is over…really over. There is a great gag that comes at the very end when most moviegoers will already be in their cars heading home. They will be missing out on a hilarious coda to a delightful film.

TOY STORY 4: A SUMMERTIME TREAT

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I was dubious about the first sequel to Pixar’s wonderful Toy Story, which turned out to be terrific. But a fourth go-round for Woody, Buzz and company? I harbored doubts but I should have had more faith in the Pixar team. This is a highly enjoyable film with laugh-out-loud gags, ingenious plotting, and endearing new characters. By the closing scene I found myself marveling at how my emotions were stirred by these innately inanimate objects.

The movie deals with the passage of time in clever ways, showing how Andy’s toys have made a series of transitions, acknowledging that this is to be expected in any toy’s “lifetime.” A little girl named Bonnie is the latest child to hold these characters close to her, literally and figuratively. Then she goes to kindergarten orientation and crafts a new “toy” out of a plastic spork. She calls him Forky and he means the world to her, completely eclipsing Woody and his pals. Their feelings are hurt, but they also want what’s best for Bonnie. That’s when the story begins in earnest.

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KEEPING THE MAGIC ALIVE

PHOTOS: DISNEY/PIXaR Actor Tony Hale voices Forky, left, a new member of the Toy Story crew, which is once again led by Tom Hanks’ beautifully nuanced character, Woody.

For three amazing Toy Story films spread over 15 years, one group was consistently marginalized. When I go to the movies, they make up at least half the audience. But they barely existed alongside Woody, Buzz, Mr. Potato Head and the rest of the boys.

I’m talking of course about Canadians, and the franchise has righted this historical wrong in a huge way with the addition of Duke Caboom, voiced by the suddenly everywhere Keanu Reeves. When Disney started making noise about this new character, I thought he was merely diversity stunt-casting. Turns out only the stunt part is true: Canada’s answer to Evel Knievel (apologies to the late Ken Carter) is an integral part of this new chapter, which finds Woody trying to safeguard a new toy named Forky.

Patriotic joking aside, there’s a whole lot happening in Toy Story 4, the most amazing thing being how first-time feature director Josh Cooley manages to keep the overstuffed 100 minutes moving so fast and feeling so nimble. The film’s eight writers must have been working overtime.

First there’s Forky, a new toy crafted by kindergarten-aged Bonnie from a spork, a pipe cleaner, a Popsicle stick, Plasticine and two mismatched googly eyes. The great comedian Marty Feldman being no longer with us, the voice goes to Tony Hale, who nails this Frankenstein’s-monster’s existential angst. Viewers of a certain philosophical bent, prepare to ponder whether cutlery has a soul. (Detractors of single-use plastic utensils will tell you they are almost eternal.)

Forky, convinced that trash he is and unto trash shall he return, leaps out of the Bonnie’s family vehicle seeking oblivion. Woody (Tom Hanks) follows on a rescue mission, with Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) not far behind. This sets up a series of zippy adventures, many of them taking place in and around a fairground, others in an antiques store.

The fairground introduces  Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele (TV’s Key & Peele) as Ducky and Bunny, two plush toys waiting to be won at a midway game. And the antique store feeds into this summer’s obsession with creepy dolls — see Child’s Play and Annabelle Comes Home — as Woody runs into the possibly-evil Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks) and her definitely dastardly delegation of dummies.

But this Toy Story’s biggest non-Canadian revelation is the return of Bo Peep, voiced by Annie Potts. Given little to do in the first movies other than fret over Woody, Bo was declared missing in Toy Story 3 and never spoken of again — until now. The new movie reveals that she ended up in the antiques store but broke out in favour of a life on the road.

She’s since gone full Mad Max, racing around in a modified radio-control vehicle, accompanied by a micro-toy named Giggles McDimples (Ally Maki) and proving that bloomers and a skirt are just a quick adjustment away from being repurposed as tights and a cape. She’s transformed from porcelain collectible to action figure, with the confidence that entails. Her new persona is the best thing to happen to the series since Reeves. (OK, it’s a tie.)

And Pixar has done it again. Almost 10 years ago, reviewers were grousing that Toy Story 3 was going to ruin the run of its perfectly good predecessors — that is, until they left theatres weeping openly at its emotional conclusion.

That same conversation is now happening again, although this critic managed to hold back the waterworks this time. Maybe, like Bo, I’ve grown stronger over the years.

But it’s still a beautiful story, anchored by the nicely nuanced characters of Bo and Woody, with Woody so consistently relatable thanks to the writers keeping him so uncertain, hesitant, even fearful. For a toy, he’s one of the most human characters in filmdom.

They’re aided by amazing cameos — listen for Mel Brooks, Carol Burnett and some truly bonkers ideas from Jeff Garlin as the unicorn Buttercup. And get ready to cheer Reeves’s scene-stealing turn as a daredevil with ice water in his veins. Or maybe that should be maple syrup?