Toy Story 3 2010 Reviewer: Torrence Fallen Director: Lee Unkrich Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty, Don Rickles, Michael Keaton, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Estelle Harris, John Morris

I went to this movie with my 2 ½ year old, her first movie in a theater ever!  We arrived; prepared with her Lotso Huggin Bear doll, blanket and the attitude that if we don’t make it through the movie, that was going to be alright.

The movie opened and within the first 5 minutes we hear “You got a Friend in Me”  the theme song for all the Toy Story movies.  A sense of familiarity rushed over me, just as my daughter smiles and says to me…”Mom, look! It’s our friends!” Referring of course to the characters we have come to love over the years….Woody, Jessie, Mr. and Mrs. Potatoes Head. Hamm, Rex, the Aliens, and of course Buzz Lightyear. 

I knew at that point this was more than just a movie; it was going to be a memory, one I at least would remember forever.

This Toy Story deals with Andy, the boys “owner” going away to college.  He is bringing Woody with him, but packing up the rest of the toys and putting them in the attic.  You can see that he is upset leaving any of them…but feels pressured by his mom to start packing.  So in a hurry and full of emotion he grabs a plastic garbage bag and throws them in.  He heads to the attic to store them away, but the ladder to the attic slips and the toys fall to the floor.  His mom trips over the bag, and assumes that since they are in a plastic garbage bag….that it is garbage, and she takes it to the curb.   This begins our adventure!

The toys see a box in the garage marked Sunnyside Daycare.  They think this is their chance to be played with again.  So they hop in.  Despite Woody’s desperate pleas for them to stay, stay where Andy can find them, after all, they are Andy’s toys, and they should be there for him.  But the gang doesn’t listen and they head to Sunnyside Daycare.
Sunnyside seems like a fun place, and the toys are excited to be played with again.   They are greeting by the rest of the toys, lead by Lotso Huggin Bear.  Lotso sounds like a great toy, but they are soon to realize that the new toys go to the Caterpillar room.  A room where the kids play rough with their toys!  And Lotso is more of a tyrant than a friend! 
The toys want to leave, but Lotso puts them in cages, making them stay.  The adventure continues as Woody comes back to rescue his friends. And they all make it back to Andy.

The end of the story had me in tears.  Andy realizes that his toys would be better off being played with, than being boxed up in an attic.  He gives them to a little loving girl named Bonnie. 

The emotional connection he shares with his toy friends was very moving.  We, the audience, shared in the joy and pain of loving something, or someone and doing what’s best for them, not what’s best for one self.  We were left happy that the toys had a new loving home, but saddened as we watched Andy leave his friends behind.

This was a fantastic movie, for the young and the young at heart.  Needless to say my 2 1/2 year old happily sat throught the whole film! Disney and Pixar are the Gold Standard of film making for children.  We laughed, I cried….and best of all...this one movie made a memory….that will last forever.  A pure CLASSIC.