Movie Review: "Toy Story 4: Woody's Final Rescue"

Nine years after the release of Toy Story 3, and 24 years after the original Toy Story movie hit the theaters, the long-awaited, highly anticipated fourth installment of the popular Toy Story series was finally released on June 21. 2019. And, for the most part, it didn’t disappoint.

Although the film makers don’t use sub-titles with the Toy Story movies, this one could have easily been called “Woody’s final rescue”, as in each of the prior three Toy Story movies Woody either rescued himself (from Sid in Toy Story 1), was rescued (from Al the Toy Collector in Toy Story 2), or rescued others (from Lotso in Toy Story 3). This was no exception in Toy Story 4, as Woody came to the rescue of a new toy created by his current “child” Bonnie, who, if you remember, inherited him, Buzz Lightyear, and the other toys from their original owner Andy at the misty eyed end of Toy Story 3 as Andy went off to college.

Toy Story 4 pretty much picked up where Toy Story 3 left off, although by this time, Woody has fallen into second class toy status as Bonnie no longer was choosing to play with him. When a distraught Bonnie was taken to kindergarten orientation class, Woody decided to sneak along, as he insisted a toy would help her cope with her new environment. Once in class, Woody, hiding in a small trash can, removed some craft remnants that were in it, in addition to a plastic fork of all things, and exposed them to a brooding Bonnie when she wasn’t looking. Bonnie then proceeded to create “Forky’, her new toy and friend. The majority of the rest of the movie saw Woody trying to keep the two together. Forky, originating from the garbage, was naturally drawn to it. Some of the funnier moments in the movie had Woody trying to keep Forky from returning to his place of origin. Forky, by the way, was voiced over by actor Tony Hale, who did a great job.

"Forky"

During the week between orientation and the beginning of kindergarten, Bonnie’s family decided to
go on a camping trip. Bonnie and Forky predictably get separated, and Woody goes on a search for the lost utensil. After finding him, the two head to the campsite with Woody sharing his life story along the way. Upon arriving at the campground, the two pass an antique store where a lamp that originally belonged to Bo Peep catches Woody’s eye.  Bo Peep, who evidently holds a special place in Woody’s toy heart, was separated from the rest of the toys earlier on. Wanting to investigate and find his missing friend, the two enter the store, and as expected, run into the Toy Story 4 version of Sid, Al and Lotso:  Gabby Gabby.  Gabby has her eyes set on a little girl named Harmony, but she has a broken pull-string voice box that delays her from doing so, as she fears the child would reject her once she found out. As a solution to her problem, Gabby sets her eyes on Woody’s voice box. And this, of course, is where all of the fun begins. I won’t go into any more detail about the goings on in the antique store so not to spoil the story, but some interesting new characters are introduced along the way, including the creepy “dummies” who guard Gabby Gabby, and Duke Kaboom, humorously voiced by Keanu Reeves.

The list of original supporting characters are all here, including Rex, Slinky Dog, Jesse, and Hamm. All have less screen time than in the prior pictures, but none more noticeably than Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head. Mr. Potato Head voice Don Rickles passed away in 2017, thus the wedded buds were limited to one line each in this movie. Rickle’s was actually pulled from archived audio. Missing in action were the little green army men and, with the exception of a quick cameo, Barbie. And after playing a fairly big role in Toy Story 3, Ken was nowhere to be seen here. And what about Buzz Lightyear?  He’s definitely there and a hero on a couple of occasions. But even his screen time was less than in prior movies.

"Woody & Bo Peep"

Being promoted to a starring role in this move, however, was Bo Peep. Once the shenanigans begin inside the antique store, she pretty much ran the show. Which seems to be the norm in most Hollywood movies these days, at least in the ones I’ve seen lately:  a strong female character leading a weaker male one, and kicking the butt of others. And there is certainly nothing wrong with that. I’m all for it. But it’s Hollywood’s motivation for doing this that troubles me, as they are obviously reacting to pressure to do so rather than doing it voluntarily. If they really felt that strongly about it, we would have seen many more strong, leader, kick butt-type female roles 10 or 15 years ago, rather than being saturated with them in the past two or three years. Particularly in the action movie genre.

Got off track, sorry! Now back to the movie:

The showing I watched featured a particularly large amount of kids under six years of age or so, and there are two scenes in the movie that garnered noticeable reactions from them. One was the ending, which I’m sure many parents had to explain to them while driving home. I actually had no problem with it, but I kind of did with the second scene. I won’t reveal the ending, but I do want to address this other scene. Warning: there is definitely spoiler material here, so skip the next paragraph if you haven’t seen the movie!

"Gabby Gabby"

As mentioned earlier, the Gabby Gabby doll had her sights on a little girl named Harmony, but didn’t
want to confront her until her pull-string voice box was fixed. Well, towards the end of the movie it did get repaired, and the moment of truth did arrive when Harmony heard Gabby and discovered her sitting on the floor in the store. A flustery-eyed Harmony picked up the doll, and with Woody and Forky watching intensely, pulled Gabby’s pull-string a couple of more times. The last message from the doll was “will you take me home?” Still looking lovey-dovey-eyed at Gabby, Harmony shocked the audience (and especially the pre-six year olds) by pausing for a couple of seconds and then saying “Nah”. She then promptly tossed Gabby Gabby into a nearby basket. Yikes! I don’t know how many kids I heard in the audience say “why?” at that moment. To be fair, that rejection did set up a nice scene a little later on where Gabby found another child, but all this did was exchange one nice moment for another. Personally, I would have stuck with the original nice moment of Gabby uniting with Harmony, because I guarantee you the second question these kids asked their parents on their drive home was “why didn’t Harmony want Gabby Gabby?”  I’m sure the parents didn’t appreciate being put into that position by the Toy Story 4 writers!  And they really shouldn’t have been. I know the creators had a reason for doing what they did, but I have no clue what it is. Be interested to find out though.

Overall though, Toy Story 4 was very entertaining and definitely offered the same all around quality and entertainment value as it’s three predecessors. Some new characters took over the spotlight from a few of the old ones, with Forky and Duke Kaboom in particular being very good while others not as much (Bunny and Ducky).  The ending will please some and disappoint others. Was it the way I wanted to see it end?  Probably not. But it made sense when looking back at the entire story being told in the movie. Does kind of leave things open for a Toy Story 5, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.