Lightyear is a perfectly serviceable computer-animated cartoon adventure which has scattered moments of ingenuity, pathos and hilarity – but not enough of them. After the mind-bending brilliance of Toy Story, Inside Out, Coco, Soul, et al, this feels like a backward step for the studio.
The framing device is a little cumbersome. An opening intertitle explains that back in 1995 (the year the original Toy Story appeared), a boy called Andy first “got the Buzz Lightyear” toy from his favourite movie.
What we are about to watch, we are told, is the movie that so enraptured him in the first place. We are then transported to a faraway planet where heroic space ranger Buzz and his commanding officer Alisha Hawthorne are on a reconnaissance mission.
Buzz (voiced by Chris Evans of Captain America fame) is the same earnest, heroic presence as in the Toy Story films. Sounding like Captain Kirk in Star Trek, he has the habit of “narrating” all of his own actions, keeping a voice diary/log book which, he says, helps him focus.
The space ranger and his colleagues are suddenly attacked by underground creatures with tentacles. Trying to save a younger “rookie” colleague, Buzz messes up, allowing the spaceship’s vital “hyper-speed crystals” to be destroyed. That means they are “marooned” a very long way from home, with no obvious way of escaping.
At first, Buzz is so ashamed, he wants to quit. After all, what is the use of a space ranger stuck on the ground? Instead, he resolves to make a series of hyper-speed test flights that might enable them to escape the planet. At this point, the film veers off into Top Gun territory.
Buzz is like a bulkier, animated version of Tom Cruise’s Maverick, driving himself to the limits of endurance. He never quite makes it, though. Every time he returns to base, he discovers that years have passed in his absence.
He is still the same age but everybody else is going grey. Alisha (voiced by Uzo Aduba) has fallen in love with a female crew member to whom she has become engaged (this portrayal of a lesbian relationship has already led to the film being banned in the UAE).
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The movie’s most appealing character is Buzz’s robot cat Sox, given to him by Alicia to help him cope with the disappointment of not being able ever to complete his mission. This is a purring, whirring, scene-stealing feline contraption with big eyes and an ironic sense of humour.
Lightyear has some very grown-up themes. It deals with love, bereavement and loss in sensitive fashion. It is also full of high-minded theorising about the physics of time travel and the nature of identity.
Nonetheless, in the second half, the film turns into just another sci-fi yarn. It borrows ideas from both the Transformers films and from the Alien franchise. For reasons not satisfactorily explained, the planet is suddenly overrun by gigantic robots led by the evil Emperor Zurg (James Brolin) in whom Buzz sees a dark reflection of himself.
Buzz joins the resistance alongside a motley crew that also includes Alisha’s granddaughter Izzy. There are lots of chases and shoot-outs as Buzz and his colleagues take on the robots.
It’s at this point that Lightyear’s originality seeps away. We are confronted with situations familiar from countless other sci-fi movies.
What the film lacks is the sheer range of characters that made the Toy Story films so enchanting. There’s no Woody or Mr Potato Head, no interaction between toys and humans, and only very limited amounts of the magic dust that is usually sprinkled all over Pixar movies.
Lightyear is released in cinemas on 17 June
