Directed by Angus MacLane
Written by Angus MacLane, Matthew Aldrich and Jason Headley
Starring: Chris Evans, Keke Palmer and Peter Sohn
Runtime: 1 hour and 40 minutes
Rated PG
Now playing in theaters

by Matt McCafferty, Staff Writer

A spin-off of the beloved Toy Story franchise, Lightyear had many people scratching their heads when the trailer first came out. Did this really need to be made? Pixar was on a roll before this with original material. Turning Red, Luca, Soul and Onward were its last four movies. One of their better runs in a while if you ask me. But I guess it was time to bring back something familiar. Or maybe it was time to boost Buzz Lightyear action figure sales. Regardless of why it was made, what we get is another worthy entry in the Pixar canon. Not just a simple Buzz Lightyear origin story, it’s a sci-fi space adventure with a pretty deep story that doesn’t hold back for kids. 

Speaking of kids, I saw this with my two daughters, ages 8 and 6. To my surprise, they were actually pretty excited to see this. Don’t get me wrong, they like the Toy Story movies. Just not enough that I would expect them to really go for this. Maybe it was more of the idea of going to the movies for just the second time since the pandemic. Their first time back to a theater was for Sing 2, which is typically much more in their wheelhouse. When the credits rolled for Lightyear, I asked them both what they thought. Their official review: It was ok. It was very confusing. Why did those people get so old like that?

To get you in the right headspace for how this story is delivered, the opening credits tells us that we are about to watch Andy’s favorite movie from 1995 when he received his Buzz Lightyear toy. Buzz (Chris Evans) is a Space Ranger who explores alien planets with his partner Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Abuba). When Buzz crashes his ship on a hostile planet, he makes it his mission to get his entire crew off the planet. To do so, he goes on multiple missions in his ship in an attempt to reach hyperspeed. Bottom line, achieving hyperspeed gets everyone off the planet. The catch is that every time Buzz fails, he misses four years back on the planet. Buzz, of course, stays the same age each time he returns. 

If you’re thinking it sounds something like Interstellar for kids, you’re kind of right. It doesn't go quite that deep, but there were several moments that had my brain going. There’s a small twist that really steps things up a notch with all the time travel stuff. That was the moment I knew my kids were totally lost. In fact, it was at that point that my youngest daughter confirmed my suspicion by asking me how much time was left in the movie. 

Most of the lighter moments of the movie come from Buzz’s team. Specifically, it’s his emotional-support robot cat, Sox (Peter Sohn), who steals the show. Sox shows up to do something funny just often enough to keep kids from realizing that they have no clue what’s happening. As for some of the emotional moments that Pixar is known to pull off, we get a few here and there. With the aging component, you can probably guess as to how some of this plays out. When it comes to moral lessons, they aren’t as upfront and obvious as you might expect. Buzz coming to terms with a past mistake and the idea of being part of a team are a couple of the obvious ones. Honestly, the movie really doesn’t try that hard to send a heavy message. Its focus is on delivering a good sci-fi movie.      

Buzz is eventually faced with the task of defeating Zurg (James Brolin) in order to get off the planet. It takes some more time bending to get to that point, but it works. I mentioned earlier that this is a space adventure through and through. The whole movie has that cold feel to it, unlike any other Pixar movie that I can think of. A bleak landscape of blues and blacks. That’s probably part of the reason why my girls didn’t get into it so much. They like bright animation and a catchy song every fifteen minutes or so. For me, I had a great time with this but not quite enough to put in the top tier of Pixar films. I’m not sure there’s anything memorable enough here to entice me to revisit it as often as I do with my top Pixar favorites. Still, with great visuals for the big screen and an engaging sci-fi story, it’s a Buzz Lightyear story that’s definitely worth checking out for any fans of the character.