Toy story 3

At last look, there were 225 reviews of Toy Story 3 in Rotten Tomatoes. Only 3 were rated negative, so they deserved immediate attention. One thought the movie even more unnecessary than the first sequel. Another felt that the 3D effects weren't good enough to compensate for the un-liked sadness of the movie. The third party-pooper objected to the level of product-placement. A trio of fair comments, but they barely dent the glittering image of the latest Pixar blockbusting work of computer-generated animation.

The creative teams at Pixar, led by John Lasseter, are master craftsmen of cinema. No other company has maintained such high standards and great box office returns for every single movie it made. One year, however, it will produce something less than perfect - that's God's Law of Human Genius.

Maybe it's started to slip off course with the studio's latest short film. Like their feature siblings, the short & sweet super-tuned Pixar cartoons have formed a steady stream of genius. This time, though, the tale of two competitive forces of Nature seemed muddled. There was one brilliant idea - employing animal noises to convey a story - and an overwhelming sense that much of the rest was an homage to Disney Fantasias. I'll watch it more than once again when the DVD appears, and am prepared to then see that it's another quantum leap in the CG animator's art.

The main feature brings back the key toy characters, all still using vocal talents that express character rather than the actors' egos. Woody is Woody with a Tom Hanksy voice, an individual in his own right unlike some animated creatures. Voices rarely dominate Pixar's screen or story (excepting, for example, Nemo's tedious father), and the wit, tearfulness and subtlety of the story is expressed clearly, not just in 3 Dimensions, through a brilliantly performed animated choreography of sights and sound effects.

Once in TS3, though, there is a clumsily stagy moment, so static it alienated me. Andy is going off to college and obeys Woody's supposedly written advice (cleverly, not shown) to give his toys to Bonnie, the young drama queen he'd met at the start of this set of adventures in the outside world. Andy slowly introduces each plastic figure to her, describing its characteristics and make-believe theatrical strengths. Bonnie may need to know those details, but Toy Story's legion of fans don't. Is the scene preparing audiences for a third sequel, which could include the girl's existing trio of star roles? (I rather hope the sweetly pompous German thespian hedgehog, voiced by Timothy Dalton, isn't a lost joy.)

More likely, the scene is akin to a final curtain call for the toys. It provides adults enough time to dab their tears and compose parental faces. Then the whole audience can enjoy the fun-filled end-credits, a cinematic romp as traditional as the opening chase sequence had been (working as well in 2D as it probably did in 3D). "Nobody's perfect" were the last words in one of Hollywood's finest live-action comedies; maybe this bunch of Pixar toys is an almost perfect CG-animation trilogy.