Movie Review Full video below
Lightyear is a fake movie i mean it's a real movie yeah i bought a ticket i watched it but this is according to pixar a movie that exists in the pixar universe it's the movie that andy saw that made him want to buy the buzz lightyear toy so it's a movie within a movie like there is an animated actor playing buzz lightyear in the movie that goes uncredited but it's assumed that the guy who is buzz lightyear in this movie is also in other movies but it's that and me you get what i'm saying and i went through all that to say that this movie is simultaneously way better than it should be but also about as deep as you'd expect a fake movie to go let's talk about it now i don't think it's a secret that i've really liked the recent pixar films like more than i should i thought seoul was a one of a kind i thought turning red was charming and beautifully animated and i thought luca was a simple and sweet story that tugged at my heartstrings everything they've been doing recently has kind of gotten me to fall back in love with pixar and then there's light year let's get one thing straight lightyear is beautifully animated go figure i think it's ridiculous that this is the only pixar film of this group that got a theatrical release considering the others look better but i'm not upset an action-filled space adventure produced by pixar unsurprisingly looks pretty damn great on the big screen their skin textures specifically scenes where buzz is sweating look really nice all the hyperspace stuff looks phenomenal and i mean pixar clearly more than any other animation company is really good at nailing realistic facial expressions they look really great in this movie specifically
the only thing i'm bummed about in regards to its distribution is where the hell was the short film was that just my theater is there really no short film this time like i got irrationally excited on my way to the theater because it was my first pixar film in a theater in years and i was gonna get to experience the short before the movie and they didn't even do it is it because this is a movie within a movie and that movie that andy saw wouldn't have had a short before it what kind of excuse is that i know i'm a grown adult i shouldn't be getting that upset about this but i'm just come on it was the kind of sign that was telling me that this was barely a pixar movie before the movie even started lightyear is a completely watchable and fine movie yes on its own yeah it's pretty good but by pixar standards and frankly by most animated film standards this was really unremarkable and what i mean by that last part is that while yes the animation is clearly beautiful when pixar is doing it they really do it but at no point in the film did it ever make the case for why this needed to be an animated film obviously i prefer it animated but it never really showcases the freedom you have with that kind of tool which is genuinely shocking to see in a pixar film this late in the game something i really do admire about pixar is how they continue to surprise me with their animation like turning red introduced new styles luca had a lot of cool shapes and colors and this was just kind of an animated movie i might sound like i'm contradicting myself here as i have been a pretty hardcore luca defender for about a year now and that my case for luca is that pixar doing these simple stories that aren't trying to be anything more are actually really sweet and i really prefer a pixar film just hanging out in its beautifully animated environment to a pixar film trying to be philosophical for the sake of living up to its reputation so by that logic lightyear should really work for me it's about as cookie cutter as it gets and makes the case in its first frame that it is a movie that is a part of a universe not something of its own but light year fails to ever genuinely hook me because buzz lightyear is not that interesting buzz lightyear the one in this movie not the one from the other movies is very dull his whole character arc is that he feels like he needs to fix everything and the message of the movie is that you can't do it without a team if you think the film is going to do anything new or exciting with that kind of message it doesn't really this is a huge stretch but it's kind of a surface level mr fox in a lot of ways chris evans even sounds like george clooney a lot of the time something that works with luca's simplicity and even turning red simplicity is the use of metaphor and how the red panda and mermaid figures symbolize the character's identities it's just on the nose enough for kids to connect to and it's interesting enough for older audiences to gain a new light-hearted perspective that is kind of the charm of every pixar film and lightyear really doesn't have an interesting hook like that lightyear is just about buzz being in space finding this group of people and working together to get back home and that's the thing it hits all the right emotional beats the script and edit are both airtight i can't really find any flaws in how they decided to tell the story but the story itself doesn't really have anything that significant to ever make you feel anything significant now counter-argument lightyear is definitely more targeted towards children than most pixar films in the last few years oh you don't think so who's its number one fan i watched this opening day in a theater full of children which if you remember my hellish jurassic world experience seems like a bad time but the theater for light year was silent but engaged only time i ever heard one of the kids say something was when someone died and a little girl went she passed away which is the cutest way a kid can say someone died and that much makes me very happy jurassic world was eye-opening it reminded me that making movies tailored towards families is actually very difficult because kids do get distracted all the damn time and if your movie is extremely boring like that one it's gonna be a noisy theater and lightyear is the kind of extremely surface level movie with a likable yet completely shallow cast of characters with really nice animation to keep a kid fully invested not to mention socks who let me just say fully won me over i i like socks a lot of the spacey adventure logic fully does not make sense like some of the ways it's talking about like the time jumps in the future and going back to the past i'm like wait what but for a movie like this who really cares this is the buzz lightyear movie from the 80s or the 70s or 9 i don't really know when it's from and if we're talking about the nostalgia factor of this movie and it being some sort of older space adventure film it only really gets halfway there i mean the plot and the tone of it definitely feel like a movie that came around the time star wars came out where it's not trying to change the game on any space movie cliches rather it leans into them because that cheese is very charming but the cinematography didn't feel all that retro it felt very modern blockbuster action film which didn't really make sense and the dialogue feels very self-aware in a way that's always kind of irritated me in these newer pixar films but most importantly the titles come on i know this is insanely nitpicky but why did they go with this like transformers type style for the credits and text it does not look good nor does it match the film at all i just wish aesthetically not just tonally the film stuck to its like 80 nostalgia's thing that would at least be a thing this movie had going for it so yeah i'm mixed about this movie i do unfortunately think it's the worst thing pixar has made in a long time but i really don't think it's a bad movie nor is it the worst movie pixar's ever made i think kids will have an absolute blast with it and if you are curious about it you should absolutely check it out it's not gonna win over any skeptics and that's fine that was not at all what the movie set out to do it isn't doing a single remarkable thing yet it kept me relatively entertained for its entire run time i'm not upset that this movie exists at all but i can hope that we are nearing the end of toy story universe movies because this is as clear of a sign as ever that these characters are getting a little exhausted anyway thanks for watching go watch lightyear inform your own opinion and before you head out...
