Movie Review: Lightyear

Movie Review: Lightyear                                                                                                     6-17-22

Lightyear tells the story of an astronaut named Buzz Lightyear. One day, Buzz and his friend Alisha Hawthorne explore the planet Tikata Prime, only for it to be infested with giant bugs and man-strangling vines, but Star Command decides to set up a camp there anyway. One day, while testing a space shuttle around Tikata Prime with the robot cat Sox, Buzz has been gone for four years, and Alisha is already engaged. Regardless, Buzz continues to test the planet’s crystallic fuel for a few more decades, and Buzz hasn’t aged a bit. When Buzz arrives back, Tikata Prime has been invaded by an army of robots lead by Emperor Zurg. Now, to save the planet, Buzz and Sox have to team up with a rag-tag trio of space cadets, including Alisha’s granddaughter Izzy Hawthorne, and infiltrate Zurg’s ship.

While the story may not be up to par with other Pixar films, Lightyear is another top-notch movie with animation that has gone a long way since Toy Stories 1 and 2, likable new characters, top-notch voice acting, and a good score from veteran Pixar composer Michael Giaccino.

Buzz and Sox are ready for takeoff.

As well as paying homage to the previous Toy Story movies, Lightyear also takes inspiration from other well-known sci-fi movies, such as Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Matrix, and of course, Star Wars.

Buzz and Sox traveling at the speed of light in the same fashion as 2001: A Space Odyssey.

If I were to complain about one thing, I felt that some story elements were a smidge confusing, which is often the case with science fiction movies. I also feel bad that they didn’t include Buzz’s karate chop action that was established as early as Toy Story 1.

In conclusion, Lightyear stands out as perhaps the best animated spinoff movie since The LEGO Batman Movie that I strongly recommend seeing in theaters. I just don’t want the movie to be a box-office flop, as Pixar’s last theatrical movie, Onward, was a box-office disaster, and their next three films would be streaming-exclusives. When DreamWorks had four box-office failures almost in a row during the early 2010s, they had to shut down PDI, lay off hundreds of employees, and cancel several projects that had promising potential, such as BOO, Me and My Shadow, and Mumbai Musical.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5.