Lightyear (2022) Dir: Angus MacLane
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My feelings in the lead up to this film's release were more than a little mixed. Upon it's announcement, I was bewildered, as I am by many of the remakes that are getting pumped out of Hollywood. When the trailer dropped, I was a little more excited, but still skeptical.
When I finally got to watch it however, any expectations I had were let down by what turned out to be a mediocre, forced and undeniably unnecessary film. My main issue is the dialogue. It is so lazy. If its not useless or repeated exposition, it's forced, unfunny jokes.
It was genuinely distracting from the plot, which itself was not exactly a strong point either. At least that had some entertainment value to it, even if it managed to stretch a 45 minute story into over twice that amount.
The big plus for this film is undeniably its incredible animation, which is genuinely some of the best work from Disney and Pixar. The space sequences were also immense and highly enjoyable.
Director Angus MacLane tried and failed to form something worthwhile, only succeeding in producing a film that is all visuals and no content. The ending was also disappointing, as it felt as though the characters went backwards more than anything else.
The ever popular Chris Evans is good as Buzz, but there was no way he could beat Tim Allen, who voiced the character in the original Toy Story films.
Keke Palmer had a substantial role in the second and third act of the film, and provided a relatively strong performance - if not an overly exceptional one.
Peter Sohn, who is in so much more than I ever realised, provides the voice for what is the film's best character. He nails the character, and is the only consistently quality character throughout.
Taika Waititi and Dale Soules had a couple of good scenes, but their characters felt so pointless and unneeded. The film basically would not have been any different if they hadn't been in it.
Finally, I'll mention James Brolin and Uzo Aduba, who, like some of those mentioned earlier, had some good scenes, but had a relatively small amount of screentime by comparison.
Overall, I can't deny that this one disappointed me a lot, especially because I love the Toy Story films. I should emphasise, this isn't a terrible film - its just not a good film either.
It's just kind of nothing. It has no substance to it - it serves no purpose other than to make money off of loyal fans of Disney and Pixar, as well as children's parents.
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