Succinctly clarified in an opening title card, the conceit of “Lightyear,” Pixar’s latest feature and a tangential prequel to the “Toy Story” storyline, is far less bizarre than anticipated: what we are watching is supposed to be the popular sci-fi adventure that Andy, the young owner of all the beloved toys, loved back in 1995. The Buzz Lightyear we know, according to this fresh lore, is an action figure based on the fictional protagonist of this movie.
But this revisionist take, directed by Angus MacLane (who previously co-directed the forgettable “Finding Dory”), plays very much like a product of today’s sensibilities in terms of representation (it features supporting characters of color and a lesbian relationship)—certainly a positive; but also responds to the Hollywood machine’s content-churning mindset that feeds insatiable fandoms accustomed to never-ending expansions or spinoffs on familiar multi-title universes and characters.
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For his human form, Chris Evans replaces Tim Allen, who played the beloved plastic version over four movies, as the voice of the space ranger. While proficient in the part, Evans doesn’t stray too far from the traditionally clean-cut and self-serious personality that has always characterized Buzz, but in this futuristic reality with high stakes, his remarks lack the irony that made them so humorously out of place in the toy world.
Stuck on another planet ridden with generic sci-fi tropes (giant alien bugs and arid conditions) due to a split-second mistake he made after refusing to accept help, Buzz feels responsible for everyone in the spaceship that can’t return home because of him. He desperately experiments with fuels that can help them achieve enough speed to cross the galaxy. But every time he travels across time and space, he loses four years. He doesn’t age, but everyone he knows, including his best friend Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba), does.
An early montage, the most poignant set piece in the entire animated narrative, makes us aware of the inevitable passage of time and how in a literal manner Buzz has remained trapped in his obsession for amending his error, as the rest of his colleagues have adapted and moved on to build lives beyond their official positions.
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That there’s no mention of what or who, if anyone, awaits Buzz back on Earth, renders the stubborn hero as someone for whom fulfilling his job title is his sole motivation. Completing the mission matters, and being remembered for it matters most.
Buzz’s disdain for using autopilot, delegating tasks, and teamwork, set up touching, but redundant messaging advocating for collaboration and for staying in the present, mistakes and all, rather than continuing to search for a way to amend the stumbles in your timeline. Ultimately, Buzz develops new friendships with a band of misfits several years in the future, after his last attempt to find a way out, as an army of alien robots under the command of Emperor Zurg (James Brolin) terrorize the humans on this planet.
The new team, Alisha’s granddaughter Izzy Hawthorne (Keke Palmer), Mo (Taika Waititi), and Darby (Dale Soules) show Buzz that great outcomes can come even from terrible missteps. Palmer stands out as a refreshing energy and voice of reason that contrasts with Buzz’s overbearing control issues. But it’s Sox, the hyper-intelligent robotic feline assigned as Buzz’s companion, and voiced by Peter Sohn, a staple at Pixar who directed “The Good Dinosaur” and has voiced various characters over the years, that provides comic relief and the adorable factor that’s always so deliberately baked into the studio’s ventures.
The mechanical movement of this manmade pet, combined with the rather analog sounds that Sohn infuses his performance with, turns Sox into a very well-thought-out sidekick that reads like something from a ’90s sci-fi flick. However, his cognitive abilities remain unclear. Is he acting based on his program or out of some sort of strange agency like the figures in “Toy Story?” For a movie so earnestly concerned with explicating a lot of other concepts about the mechanics of its world, this seems a tad odd.
From a technical standpoint, the animation in “Lightyear” succeeds at making the backgrounds and production design details seem so organically conceived and naturally affected by the weather and the elements that one can become unaware of how much work goes into producing such effect frame after frame. Pay attention, for example, to the details in terms of the wear and tear on the suits or on some of the facilities.
While the locations resemble countless other outer space stories with little to set them apart, the execution illustrates how much the medium has advanced in the twenty years since animation went into space with “Titan A.E.,” “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within,” or “Treasure Planet,” none of which triumphed critically or at the box office. Yet, the narrative ambitions of those three predecessors were more risk-taking.
As is expected from Pixar projects – in this case, written by McLane and Jason Headley (“Onward”) – every element they plant during the first act has a clear payoff, often too conveniently positioned to yield poignancy. Though the pacing never stalls—the next cosmic mishap is always around the corner for this makeshift crew—“Lightyear” begins to feel unnecessarily long after the second altercation that Buzz and his new reluctantly acquired friends encounter, given how much exposition preceded their meeting.
Playing with time the way this movie does will certainly open the doors for silly theories and arguments about where and how this tale fits within the unspoken mandate of “everything needs to fit within a bigger puzzle in order to quench the thirst for continuity.” Expect people to wonder why Andy didn’t have a Sox toy in the first “Toy Story.”
Following Pixar’s two most refreshing releases in years, “Luca” and “Turning Red,” both of which were deemed unworthy of a full theatrical release, it’s difficult not to perceive “Lightyear” as a far less compelling and safe bet. How tiresome it is that most studio productions must now exist as part of a larger multiverse in order to merit exposure. In the end, “Lightyear” reveals that today, given Disney’s business model, “to infinity and beyond” really only means to the inevitable sequel. [C+]
“Lightyear” arrives in theaters on June 17.
