Lightyear: Does It Go To Infinity and Beyond?

It's been about five years since I've started this site. I think it's very fitting to celebrate that anniversary with Lightyear. As many of you know, I love the Toy Story movies. Like Jurassic Park, I grew up with them. My family and I used to watch them all of the time. My dad and me would basically speak in quotes from this movie. He used to tell me the story of when he got me a Buzz Lightyear toy and put it next to my head when I woke up. According to him, I went crazy. What's also really neat about this movie is that it's the first Pixar movie in two years to play excluisively in movie theaters. Soul, Luca, and Turning Red (which I still have to watch) were all sent to Disney+. I hated this decision, especially since it was said Turning Red would get a theatrical run. It's not fair to the people at Pixar or movie fans in general. Their work deserves to be seen on the big screen, especially since other Disney animated features like Raya and the Last Dragon and Encanto (both I have not yet seen) got a theatrical run to some degree. Pixar is by far Disney's best studio and they should be treated with respect. I remember being so excited for this movie, especially hearing that Chris Evans (Captain America himself) was going to be voicing the titular character. However, I was worried Disney and their idiot president Bob Chapek were going to try and pull a fast one by throwing this on their streaming service. Luckily, that's not the case. What's even cooler is that I got to watch this movie a little earlier than everyone else, too. Wednesday night, certain theaters were having something called the "Andy Experience" and played the movie early. At the end of the film, everyone got a poster. It was really cool! Does Pixar's first theatrical movie in years live up to the hype? That's what I'm here to tell you.

Lightyear is directed by Angus MacLane and stars Chris Evans, Keke Palmer, Taika Watiti, Peter Sohn, Dale Soules, and James Brolin. After being stuck on a distant planet for years, Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear (Evans) has been trying to escape. To do so, he'll need the help of a team of cadets. Things aren't so easy, though, when they have to fight Zurg (Brolin) and his army of evil robots. With all of that out of the way, let's dive into the review!

There was a lot of confusion about this movie when it was announced. People were confused about what it was and how it fit into the Toy Story universe. I understood right off the bat and the movie explains it at the beginning by saying, "In 1995, Andy got a toy from his favorite movie...this is that movie." See? Not so hard. This is the film that inspired the action figure. Moving on from all of that, I absolutely loved this movie. Chris Evans did a great job as Buzz. No one can replace Tim Allen, but Evans did a fantastic job. Watching the movie, I really picked up on all the little mannerisms that we've come to love from the toy. Buzz is very tunnel-visioned and literal. Evans did an awesome job of voicing him. There were times watching when I went, "Yup, that's Buzz." Chris Evans didn't just try to copy Tim Allen. He put his own spin on it. It was really cool to explore this character in a sci-fi setting. In this movie, Buzz always puts the mission first and speaks in a very straight-forward way. He blames himself for all of the people being stuck on this planet and is willing to sacrifice years of his life to fix the problem. What I mean by this is when Buzz is doing a test flight in space, for him it's only a couple of minutes, but for the people on the base, it's years. Yet again Chris Evans is playing a man out of time! What I really appreciated were all of the little Easter eggs and nods to the Toy Story films. We get to hear all of the famous Buzz catchphrases, yes, but it goes a little deeper too. There's a scene when the robot cat Sox (Sohn) scares Lightyear and he jumps and strikes a pose. He does the whole karate thing he did in the first movie. It's great. Speaking of Sox, the little feline steals a ton of scenes in this movie. He's just hysterical with the way he talks and moves. Some of the funniest scenes in the movie are because of him. It was also funny seeing the famous Space Ranger carry a robotic cat the whole movie. The supporting cast is great as well. Keke Palmer did an awesome job as Izzy Hawthorne, the granddaughter of Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba), Buzz's old partner. Her relationship with Lightyear is pretty interesting because she spent her whole life hearing about him, but he's never heard of her. It's tough for him because, he cared about her grandmother so much and Izzy isn't really the same person. The rest of the crew is great as well. Mo Morrison (Watiti) is a fumbling cadet and Darby Steel (Soules) is a criminal hoping to get some time off of her sentence reduced. Like Sox, these two add a lot of laughs to the movie. Visually, this movie is just breathtaking. Seeing the advances Pixar has made in their technology over the years has been astounding. It's gorgeous to look at, especially the sequences where Lightyear is flying in his ship. Everything was just beautiful to look at and you could tell that the filmmakers really put a lot of passion into this film. Every piece of equipment is beautifully detailed. It's beautiful to see on a big screen. I felt that the filmmakers really treated this as a sci-fi action film as opposed to just a cash-in. The action in this movie is great, too. It felt a lot like Star Wars (and not like a blatant rip-off either). Michael Giacchino did an awesome job with the score for this movie. When I was watching the movie I thought, I gotta listen to this again. It's epic and grand.

I don't really have a ton of negatives for this one. It's not the deepest, most emotional Pixar movie, but for me I didn't mind. Not all of them need to be. There were times when things did get a little predictable, but it never took me out of the movie. At times, I did want to see some more bonding between Buzz and his team, but that's not to say there isn't any. This next part is very nitpicky, but I also wanted to see some other planets as well. For pretty much the entire film, we see the one that's been in the trailers.

To wrap everything up, Lightyear was a great time. Chris Evans did a great job as Buzz, the supporting cast (particularly Sox) are great, the visuals are breathtaking, and the music is very well-done. Some may be put off by the fact that it's not one of the more deeper Pixar films, and at times it could be a little predictable. I also wanted to see some other planets, but that's an extremely minor gripe. I honestly believe that this movie should be experienced in a theater. It's a great way to support the artists who have been shafted over the past couple of years. I really believe that this could be a pretty cool series of films, too, if the reception is big enough. I hope we can see more! If I were to rate it, I'd give Lightyear an 8.5-9/10. Also, be sure to sit through all of the credits! I wish I did! It was great seeing a Pixar movie on the big screen again!