By: Ted Trafton & Andrew Wing

Lightyear is a 2022 American computer-animated science-fiction action-adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. The film, a spin-off of the Toy Story film series (serving as an origin story for the fictional test pilot/astronaut character who the Buzz Lightyear toy/action figure featured in the main films was inspired by), was co-written and directed by Angus MacLane (he also co-directed Finding Dory) and produced by Galyn Susman, and stars Chris Evans (played Steve Rogers / Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) as the voice of the title character, with Keke Palmer (Jump In!, True Jackson, VP), Peter Sohn (voiced Emile in Ratatouille, and Squishy in Monsters University), James Brolin (father of Josh Brolin, who starred in the television series Hotel), Taika Waititi (best known for directing Thor: Ragnarok and Jojo Rabbit), Dale Soules (The Messenger, Orange Is the New Black), Uzo Aduba (Orange Is the New Black), Mary McDonald-Lewis, Efren Ramirez (Napoleon Dynamite) and Isiah Whitlock Jr. (The Wire) in supporting roles.

Lightyear tells the story of young astronaut Buzz Lightyear, who, after being marooned on a hostile planet with his commander and crew, tries to find a way back home while confronting a threat in the form of the Emperor Zurg. Initially, the source material for Buzz Lightyear was introduced in the 2000 direct-to-video film Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins, which was the pilot to a spin-off television series, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (2000-01). After finishing work on Finding Dory (2016), MacLane, a science fiction fan, pitched the idea of making a film about Buzz Lightyear at Pixar. To evoke the science fiction films the director grew up watching, the animators wanted to give the film a "cinematic" and "chunky" look. The animation and visual process were done remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Michael Giacchino (Up, The Batman) composed the film’s scores.

Lightyear had its world premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on June 8, 2022, and was theatrically released in the United States on June 17 in RealD 3D, 4DX, Dolby Cinema, and IMAX formats. This was the first Pixar film to be filmed in IMAX.

THE GOOD

From Ted’s perspective…

First things first, the Toy Story franchise provides a ton of great nostalgia for me. Few songs have been engrained in my brain quite like Randy Newman’s “You've Got a Friend in Me”, and I wasn’t mad about it. That song was simply fire and fit the debut film in the franchise so well. The original Toy Story made it’s debut back in 1995, which seems crazy if I’m being honest considering how well it holds up today. The film remains nearly blemish free when it comes to critics, and pulled in an impressive $363 million in the box office. The 4th film in the franchise released just a few years ago in 2019. Realizing that Andrew had yet to be born when the original released makes me want to swan dive off the roof of my house, but that is a story for another day. The bread and butter of the franchise has always been the message at it’s core which is the powerful bond of family and friendship, and what it means to feel forgotten or left behind. At the end of the day, as human beings (or toys that come to life) we all need to feel wanted or valued in one way or another.

Back in November of 1995, life was good for a gun-slingin’ cowboy toy named Woody. He was the apple of his owner’s eye, a joyous and wholesome young boy named Andy. He even had Andy’s name quite haphazardly written on the bottom of his boot with sharpie as a nice reminder. But, all great things must come to an end at some point, right? All of the toys in Andy’s room are tightly wound as the little boys birthday has arrived yet again. Each toy fears the worst, being replaced. In comes Andy’s newest and highly sought after toy, the shiny Space Ranger known as Buzz Lightyear, complete with a wing suit, laser, and a quite an ego. When Buzz first comes to life, he doesn’t realize he is a toy. He thinks he is the real Buzz Lightyear, a character in one of Andy’s favorite movies which is why he asks for the toy for his birthday. Buzz is certain he has landed on yet another uninhabitable planet as he searches for signs of intelligent life, only to encounter Woody and the rest of Andy’s toys who proceed to convince him that he is in fact, just a toy. So, what about the “real” Buzz Lightyear?! I’m glad you asked! Andrew and I were beyond pumped when Lightyear made it’s debut in theaters, and knew we would be there on opening day. We decided to do a blended review considering we both have a different generational perspective when it comes to the Toy Story franchise. So what did we think? Keep reading to find out!

I’ll go first, I absolutely loved Lightyear! The film opened with several trademark Buzz Lightyear lines, and I damn near fell out of my seat I was so excited. Seeing this larger-than-life version of the toy I have grown to love just felt surreal to me in so many ways, and the 2022 animation advancements courtesy of Disney and Pixar Animation Studios was pure eye candy. I was drawn to each and every character outside of the titular Buzz Lightyear, which again, is a given, and I thought each character had great depth and fit the story perfectly. The writing team brings the heat yet again with a screenplay packed to the brim with exciting action sequences, a ton of emotional moments, and the power of family and friendship the Toy Story franchise is known for. Lightyear accomplished something I didn’t think was possible, which made me appreciate Buzz Lightyear more than I already did. I won’t go as far as to say that this is the best film in the franchise, counting the four Toy Story films of course, but it is a worthy and heartfelt addition that will hopefully serve as a springboard for more Toy Story movies. If they announce a Woody origin story, I might pass out. I wish I was kidding.

As far as the screenplay is concerned, it was actually much more elaborate that the trailer would lead you to believe. The trailer definitely puts you on the right track, but its one of those situations where they cut the trailer a certain way to avoid revealing the primary backstory of the film which I thought was a nice touch. The origin story of Buzz Lightyear is intriguing for several reasons, with the obvious and primary reason being the toy that was a huge factor in the success of the Disney-Pixar Toy Story film franchise. Buzz Lightyear and his “To Infinity and Beyond!” catchphrase has been rattling around the brains of kids and adults for decades, and we were finally afforded the opportunity to see why Andy wanted him for his birthday, and it wasn’t just the shiny and awesome suit.

Buzz is a man of the people, someone who is supremely confident but also terrified of failure. More than just failure, Buzz worries about letting the people who count on him down. There is no more prestigious position than that of a Space Ranger, and it is a role Buzz takes very seriously. The fate of mankind rests in the hands of Buzz and his co-pilot Alisha Hawthorne, and when a failed mission put everything they have worked for in jeopardy, Buzz is willing to sacrifice himself to save those he cares about most. This is the driving factor of the Lightyear story, and everything about it from the time travel element to the humor and emotional moments, I was engaged from start to finish.

As far as the voice actors are concerned, it should come as no surprise that they hit a home run with Lightyear. Chris Evans, who is attempting to transition to new projects after a phenomenal run as a Marvel mainstay, absolutely crushes it as Buzz Lightyear. I mean, who better to voice the real-life (sort of) space ranger than Captain American himself?! He just felt like such a natural in the role from the start, and I never once questioned his ability to really make this character come to life. His voice just fit everything that Buzz Lightyear embodied from the start and that had me fully invested. Uzo Aduba has a smaller but pivotal role as the voice of Alisha Hawthorne, but she was fantastic. Veteran actress Keke Palmer voices Hawthorne’s granddaughter Izzy, and I thought she was perfect for this role. Palmer, who recently starred in the 2019 comedy drama Hustlers, also has a lead role in the upcoming Jordan Peele horror thriller Nope, set to debut in theaters this summer (preview and trailer here). Palmer complimented Evans exceptionally well and the two had genuinely impactful chemistry in terms of the emotional element of the film.

The only thing that even came close to matching my excitement for the film in general or the fact that Chris Evans was voicing the great Buzz Lightyear, was the addition of my guy Taika Waititi, who yet again offers up his comedic chops for the greater good. The New Zealand native voices Mo Morrison, the poor oblivious “Space Ranger in Training” who stumbles upon a dangerous mission he couldn’t have been less interested in embarking on. But to the pure enjoyment of the audience, he didn’t have a choice. How I measure his performances may not be fair because his accent just kills me, but Waititi is hilarious in this with his well-timed punch lines and the fact that he just can’t seem to stop messing things up. I also really liked how they modeled his character to look exactly like real-life Taika Waititi, and that just made it even funnier for me. “My superpower is ingenuity!”

Oh, and for the people ready to boycott the film over the refusal to cast Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear you might want to take a few deep breaths and think about this for a second. This is the Buzz Lightyear the toy is based on, and Allen voices the toy. Would it make sense for the “real” Buzz Lightyear and the toy version of him to be voiced by the same person? I don’t think so. Maybe eventually we will get a Woody origin story, and we’ll see who they can find to fill the shoes of the great Tom Hanks.

On the technical side of things the animation is spectacular as expected. I mean let’s be honest for a second, when you sit down to watch a film with Disney-Pixar attached to it, you know it is going to incredible and just top-notch in every conceivable way. Nearly every scene left me in awe, from the characters facial expressions to how realistic and disgusting the inside out vending machine sandwiches looked, it was just eye candy throughout. The film was fairly limited in terms of visuals at its disposal because of the setting, but they made the most of it and created a world that felt very much lived in and alive. Also having seen the amazing film that is Top Gun: Maverick ( our full review here) recently, I couldn’t help but appreciate the glorious flying sequences that Lightyear had to offer. I was also very pleased with the soundtrack/score as it helped a ton setting the tone for the film especially during the more emotional scenes. I just realized I have been rambling for quite some time, so now I’ll give Andrew an opportunity to give us his thoughts on the film.

From Andrew’s Perspective…

It goes without saying that Lightyear was one of my most anticipated films of 2022. I’m sure 99% of the United States will say the same thing too because Buzz Lightyear is one of the biggest and most notable movie characters of all time, live-action or animated. I mean I grew up watching all of the Toy Story films and once I heard that this film was being made, I was just through the roof. More than that, the fact that the one and only Chris Evans, who was Captain America for the past decade, was going to voice the iconic character, I was on cloud nine. And because of my unhealthy anticipation, I just had to see this on opening night, so without further ado, did Lightyear live up to my otherworldly expectations, or did it prove that Disney and Pixar need to focus more on new stories rather than continuing off existing IP? Keep reading to find out!

Lightyear has everything you’d expect from a Pixar film and I will touch on all of those elements later in the review, but what I’ll talk about first is what was the most surprising thing about Lightyear, and that's how strong all of the science fiction elements were. That is in large part because of the director Angus MacLane, who made a sci-fi extravaganza with action worthy of the Star Wars films and ideas worthy of the genius Christopher Nolan. The story we got here was so good and I loved how character-driven it was. We really got to see how Buzz is at first this very self-absorbed person who gets off on feeling competent and in control, and the movie was constantly examining and challenging his shortcomings and I thought that was a nice touch. With all of that said, the film remained faithful to the spirit of the Toy Story movies while still being its own entity, so I give a big round of applause to director Angus MacLane, and I can’t wait to see what he does next!

Alright, I’ve waited long enough, it’s time to address Chris Evans’ voice performance as the titular character, Buzz Lightyear. His take on Buzz was amazing and it’s illegal to say that it’s as good or better than Tim Allen’s was because he made the character, but it was about as good as it could’ve been to me. Evans captured the character’s personality without doing a Tim Allen impression, and I was so impressed by Evans’ performance. The man can truly do no wrong, whether it’s kicking ass in that tight suit as Captain America or as the antagonist in the 2019 mystery film Knives Out (see Ted’s full review here), and I cannot wait to see him go toe to toe with another one of my favorite actors in Ryan Gosling in just over a month in the upcoming Netflix action thriller The Gray Man (see our preview here), which is directed by the Russo brothers.

Another great thing about Lightyear was its humor throughout. It is definitely a more inspired kind of humor and the fan-favorite when it came to who got the most laughs was the Sox character that’s voiced by Peter Sohn. I mean you just knew there was going to be a great comic relief character with it being a Pixar film. Aside from Sox though, all of the supporting characters were great from Taika Waititi’s Mo Morrison character to Bill Hader’s Featheringhamstan. They were all fantastic and provided a ton of laughs. James Brolin was awesome too as he voiced Emperor Zurg and Keke Palmer crushed it in her voice role as Izzy Hawthorne. Palmer is going to have herself quite the summer because not only is she in this, but she is set to star alongside Daniel Kaluuya in Jordan Peele’s upcoming science fiction horror film Nope (see our preview here).

There were so many other things I liked about Lightyear. First with the animation, and I know I use this word a lot, but it was truly stunning. I mean we know what to expect when it comes to Pixar, but they just continue to get better and better when it comes to their animation. I think a big reason I liked it so much though was because of all of the scenes in outer space and some of the longer takes we got in space that resembled Alfonso Cuarón’s 2013 science-fiction epic Gravity which won Cuarón his first of two Best Director Academy Awards. Other than that, the sound design was fantastic, the visual effects were top-notch, and it was extremely well-paced. Oh, and one more thing, Michael Giacchino’s score was amazing and it brought so much to the film as a whole. As good as his score here was, it still isn’t even his best score of 2022, because that my friends is the score he did for the DC superhero film, The Batman (see Ted’s full review here).

In closing, the film has a lot of heart and it’s emotional too as we see Buzz learn the value of teamwork and the importance of accepting mistakes along the way. This may be a small spoiler, but there is at least one moment that will get you teary-eyed so just be prepared. All in all, I was just so impressed with how well put together this film was. A Buzz Lightyear origin story could have misfired in so many ways, but this film goes to infinity and beyond. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t resist, but in all seriousness, I will be rooting for this film to take home the Oscar for Best Animated Feature film at the 95th Academy Awards, because it is very deserving.

THE BAD

From Andrew’s Perspective…

Despite my love for this film, there were just a few minor things I thought they could’ve done better. The first was that the film was very predictable at times despite the interesting story we were given. At the end of the day though it’s a Pixar film, and I feel like most of them are quite predictable. I will say though that I think a longer runtime might’ve helped solve that problem a little bit just by maybe throwing some more stuff in there because this film is only just over an hour and a half if you take out the credits. With that said, it’s a kid’s movie so they really can’t make it 2 hours plus, or else you’d either have kids falling asleep or just no longer paying attention. Finally, this is definitely a nice addition to the Disney Pixar catalog, but because of the film feeling a little obvious at times, I just can’t put it in the upper echelon of Pixar movies because I think the best Pixar movies get their point across in more indirect ways like for example, in Inside Out which I truly think is not only arguably the best Pixar film ever made, but one of the best animated movies ever made.

One more thing and I feel this needs to be addressed, but the main critique that I have seen from other critics when it comes to Lightyear is that it is another example of a soulless way to profit off of existing IP like the Toy Story franchise, but that is just such an old and annoying argument that really doesn’t work. This definitely wasn’t the worst way to use the IP, and if we are going to be totally transparent, everything is based on a previous work and I’m down for any space adventure that Pixar wants to give us.

From Ted’s Perspective…

It made sense to let Andrew jump into his criticisms of the film first considering I knew it would be easier for him to take out the critical microscope if you will, and to be honest I agree with all of his points. Even though I score the film a bit higher, which you will see in the verdict section, Lightyear is not perfect, and surely isn’t the best Toy Story film either for that matter. That honor of course is reserved for the original film. But yeah, the plot is predictable as Andrew mentioned and surely limited by the fairly short run time, but I appreciate that as a dad who is at the mercy of kids and their notoriously short attention spans. I wouldn’t go as far as to necessarily criticize the decision to go this route mainly because the primary objective was to bring the iconic Buzz Lightyear to life, and I felt like they accomplished that goal. But at the same time Andrew mentions the incredible film Inside Out as an example, and even though Lightyear has a ton going for it, that is just in another league in terms of the whole package.

THE VERDICT

From Ted’s Perspective…

Top-tier voice acting matched only by the stunning visuals, laugh-out-loud humor, and the heartfelt moments the Toy Story franchise is so proudly known for, Lightyear is an origin story of epic proportions that put an ear-to-ear smile on my face and brought out my inner-child. To infinity, and beyond!! I ended up seeing the movie twice as I took my 3-year-old son the very next day, and it was even better the second time around. He loved it as well, of course, and couldn’t take his eyes off the screen. Which is saying something considering he had a plate of chicken fingers, waffle fries, and a full basket of popcorn in front of him. I really can’t put a price on a movie that makes me feel like a kid again while allowing me the opportunity to share something so special with my own son. It’s really a feeling I can’t even begin to describe. Bottom line, Lightyear is so much more than a cash-grab and I personally cannot wait to see it for a third time. Get the family together and head out to the theater sooner than later.

TED’s RATING - 9.1/10

From Andrew’s Perspective…

Lightyear, the latest film from the famous duo that is Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, is a really solid adventure film with amazing science fiction elements, and it is also surprisingly thought-provoking at times as it serves as a sort of character study on the iconic Buzz Lightyear.

I was so impressed with the direction and story we got from Angus MacLane as he gave us some sci-fi elements we’ve never gotten from a Pixar film, and Chris Evans absolutely killed it as the voice of Buzz Lightyear as he brought new depth to the legendary character. Other than that, the film had everything you could ask for when it comes to a Disney Pixar film from the stunning animation, heart, humor, lovable side characters, and an unforgettable comic relief character, this one being the robotic cat that serves as Buzz’s companion, Sox.