Between 1995 and 2019, the films of the saga Toy Story (toy story) were among the most celebrated of the Disney-Pixar studios, bringing in the tidy sum of three billion American dollars and dust. This means that, despite the announcement that the fourth part would be the last, there was no question for Disney to abandon such a lucrative intellectual property. so here’s Lightyear (VF), which stars not the Buzz Lightyear seen in the previous films, but the “original model”.
What do we mean by that? From the start of Lightyear, a subtitle recalls that in 1995, a kid named Andy received as a gift a Buzz Lightyear figurine inspired by the character of a film. “It’s about that movie,” it says of what will be both a spin-off AND a preview. Ingenious.
The sequel wastes no time in setting the action. And action, there is, hectic, but constant: obviously, someone, somewhere, feared a collective attention deficit on the part of the young public, hence this immediate and almost incessant bombardment. The result is a film that always rolls at maximum speed.
We thus follow Buzz (voice of Chris Evans in VO and Xavier Dolan in VF) who, after a false maneuver on his part, sees his crew forced to colonize a distant planet. In order to repair his mistake, Buzz will multiply test flights at the speed of light, returning to the ground at the same age, but with comrades who have aged several years. To say more would spoil the enjoyment of the film.
Messages supported
Because, yes, Lightyear turns out to be entertaining despite its flaws (like this tendency to press its messages very hard). The treatment reserved for Alisha, Buzz’s best friend and rare openly gay character in such a production, pleases enormously since no one makes a case of it: she is a lesbian, quite simply. For the record, after removing it, the studio reinserted in the film a kiss between Alisha and her partner following the public outing of its employees against the background of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida, Disney’s stronghold. .
Without doubt, that said, the most memorable new character, and who will sell the best in merchandising, is this adorable cat-robot. Which cat-robot allows the film many screenplay tricks of the type deus ex machine.
In this respect, the scenario turns out to be less original than the average Pixar production. In science fiction, Wall-Eon which director Angus MacLane collaborated, could give a lesson or two to Lightyear. Here and there, we pick up narrative elements in Star Wars, star trekand even in Up (up there), whose brilliant prologue obviously inspired the accelerated curve of one of the key characters.
The film has a handful of fun winks aimed at adults, including Aliens… Visually, Lightyear is impressive. It is, from a technical point of view, a very accomplished production: a constant at Pixar. Ah, and yes, the door remains wide open for one, or more likely, sequels.