Toy Story 3

Rating: 5 Shurikens

The anticipated third installment of the Toy Story series has hit the theaters. It is every bit as entertaining as the first two. Told from the point of view of the toys, it is a bittersweet tale of a child's toys, after the child ha grown and no longer plays with toys. All of Andy's familiar toys are back, and are accientally donated to a day care center. They end up in the room with the very youngest children, and their ordeal is epic. The story is mostly about how they try to reunite with their old owner, even though their future would most likely be life in an attic.

Some other new toy characters are introduced, with their own stories of lost owners, and how they are affected by being lost or replaced. The characterizations are as amazinglly apt, each toy having a personality of its own. They interact as well as m0ost human actors, and in ways the story is more enjoyable than a lot of live-action movies. In fact, it is amazing that a cartoon, which is basically what Pixar movies are, can be so realistic in the depiction of how toys would look and act, and how they would feel if they were alive.

The first Toy Story movie was a ground-breaking expansion of the animated story, and Pixar has been churning out masterpieces ever since. Practically all Pixar movies are good, although some, like Rattatouille and A Bug's Life, are not as good as others, like Cars, Wall-e and Up. Still, even the worst Pixar movie is better than a lot of other studios' works.

The meeting of Barbie and Ken is classic, one of the highlights of the movie. The Potatoheads are great, and the Fisher-Price phone is awesome. Toy Story 3 is a good story, from beginning to end. Some of the story seems to write itself, and some of it is pretty scary stuff for little kids. And for adults, it's a cartoon that can make a grown man cry. It earns a full 5 Shurikens, for action and imagination.