My Review of "Lightyear"

Lightyear is finally come out on streaming on Disney Plus. It took me a while to watch this one. Admittedly, I wasn't really excited to see it but I knew it was a Pixar film so it can't be too bad. There's this part of me that was curious what they were going to do with the Buzz Lightyear character in this movie as well.

This movie starts off with a narrative crawl that explains that this movie is the movie that Andy (the little boy in Toy Story) watched in 1995. I guess this is the movie that made him want to buy the Buzz Lightyear toy who happens to be the main character of this movie.

It's hard for me to believe that this was a movie that came out in 1995. We saw Toy Story back in 1995 and it had all of the 90's things going on with arcades and popular toys at the time. This movie feels very modern and in some ways feels like its targeted to adults more than kids. Who am I to decipher what a Andy liked back in 1995 though.

The movie starts off with Buzz and his friend Alisha. They're both space rangers trying to transport a ship full of people to their destination. Unfortunately they come into some problems that results in them getting stuck on a remote planet.

As a space ranger Buzz is adamant about completing his mission so he continues to try to create the fuel they need to get them back to the place they're supposed to get to. The problem is this fuel that he's trying to create is a concoction that will allow them to go into hyper drive. Whenever Buzz attempts to do this he inadvertently fast-forwards 4 years.

After each attempt we see his friend Alisha age and mature in life. She has a relationship, then she has a family and then she has grand kids. Life is passing by and Buzz is blind to see what's around him because of his focus on his mission.

Another big issue with Buzz is that he's a lone soldier. He has to do everything alone. One could argue that it was because of a rookie that was added to the team that they were marooned on the remote planet in the first place. We can kind of see where this movie is going a mile away.

They pretty much foreshadow things over and over again and it gets a little silly. I mean there's this thing with a pen that keeps coming up and we know that item will be useful eventually. This part I felt was a little too dumbed down for us as the audience but then again they are still trying to appeal towards kids.

There are a lot of things to pander to kids too like the Sox the kitten character. He's a therapy robot animal friend that is provided to Buzz as they realize he may be going through some sense of PTSD.

For the most part this is a very competent movie. It has pretty much everything to make a solid movie. There are some annoying character's like Mo a clumsy colleague of theirs closer to the end of the movie. I'm glad he wasn't in the whole movie or else I would have droned off. He's basically the character that Taika Waititi plays in all movies. A idiotic braindead character with a heart of gold. If you aren't over his typecast characters then you will still be able to enjoy it but I've seen enough of it.

There are a lot of nods to Buzz Lightyear's character in Toy Story throughout this movie. His catch phrase to the weapons and ships that we saw in the previous Toy Story movies. I can see how they could make a toy out of the whole movie however it doesn't feel like a 90's movie let alone a movie that kids would be dying to watch on repeat. I did like the Galaxy Quest reference later on in the movie as a nod to Tim Allen with "Never give up, never surrender".

Overall, this is still a fun and entertaining movie. Fans of the Toy Story series may still be able to catch a lot of the Easter eggs sprinkled throughout this movie. This kind of goes against what our preconceived notion of what a Buzz Lightyear movie would be but that's good and bad. I liked that it kept me on my feet and was still able to provide an emotional story. Unfortunately I don't think I would be able to play this on repeat. That's why I have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. It's a good one time viewing for me.