Toy Story 5 review: a thoughtful return to form that takes on Big Tech

Though Toy Story 5 is a continuation of Woody and Buzz’s adventures in humanland, it is also a poignant exploration of what it’s like for kids to grow up in a world where they’re often encouraged to experience life through screens. The movie frames tech as an almost inescapable element of our reality that can hurt us in ways that outweigh its potential benefits. But its story highlights how — for all of tech’s potential to do harm — we still have the ability to choose when and how we let newfangled devices into our personal lives.

Set a few years after Toy Story 4, the new feature from director Andrew Stanton (who cowrote the script with Kenna Harris) zooms in on a now eight-year-old Bonnie Anderson (Scarlett Spears) as she enters a new phase of her childhood. When she’s by herself, Bonnie still loves coming up with elaborate melodramas for Jessie (Joan Cusack), Buzz (Tim Allen), and Forky (Tony Hale) to star in, but she’s self-conscious about playing with toys around her new neighbors. It’s hard for Bonnie’s parents to understand why their usually outgoing daughter is struggling to make friends with other children. But they figure that because Bonnie’s getting older, it might be time for her to receive one of the Lilypad (Greta Lee) tablets that most of her peers already have.

Though Lily’s always-on listening and her ability to interface with other smart devices sets Bonnie’s toys on edge, what really terrifies them is how quickly the tablet becomes the center of their owner’s world. Through Lily’s Pond platform, Bonnie can play games with other kids and get sucked into group chats with her new online friends. And it doesn’t take long for the girl’s old toys to feel like they’re about to get put into storage.

Toy Story 5 is a thoughtful examination of our modern relationships with technology because of how it presents Bonnie’s story as a situation that is happening to countless other people living around her. Lily’s presence is a terrifying new development for Bonnie’s toys who seldom leave their house, but during Woody (Tom Hanks) and Bo Beep’s (Annie Potts) adventures in the outside world, they’ve seen how humans of all ages have gotten into the habit of staring at screens for hours on end.

One of the film’s best recurring jokes is the way that Jessie and company have more freedom to run around because people are too busy scrolling on their devices to notice groups of sentient toys gallivanting through the bushes. Technology’s ubiquity gives all of Bonnie’s toys a very real reason to feel like they’re becoming irrelevant. But rather than leaning into the idea that all devices are inherently bad, Toy Story 5 emphasizes the importance of remembering that our experiences with new gadgets are defined by how we choose to use them.

The movie also does an excellent job of unpacking what can make it hard for parents to set strict limits on their children’s screentime. Bonnie’s parents know that she shouldn’t be glued to her tablet 24/7, but they can’t deny that the Lilypad is where most kids her age are socializing and making important bonds. Bonnie’s toys — who slip into a stylized, fantastical reality whenever they’re being played with — can see that spending time with Lily does little to really light up their girl’s imagination the way that they can. But even though Lily serves as Toy Story 5’s antagonist, her mischievous actions are motivated by a genuine desire to make Bonnie happy.

Though Disney and Pixar have always been good at tugging on audiences’ heartstrings, Toy Story 5 feels like a return to form for the series because of how it captures everything that’s great and terrible about life in the age of Big Tech. Going forward, the franchise might have to shift focus once again because its central human character really is getting to the age where traditional toys stop feeling like such a big deal. Then again, the current state of tech-enabled toys does present plenty of fodder for the future.

Toy Story 5 also stars Conan O’Brien, Craig Robinson, Shelby Rabara, Mykal-Michelle Harris, John Ratzenberger, Wallace Shawn, Bad Bunny, Keanu Reeves, Ernie Hudson, Lori Alan, Jay Hernandez, Kristen Schaal, Melissa Villaseñor, and Blake Clark. The movie hits theaters on June 19th.