Toy Story (John Lasseter)

Rating: 4.0

An absolute delight from beginning to end, TOY STORY makes Disney's 
recent conventionally-animated features seem positively lifeless--not so 
much because of the three-dimensional, tactile quality of the 
computer-generated images (which are spectacular), but because of its 
terrific, unexpectedly perverse script.  Can anybody imagine Disney's own 
production team including anything as wonderfully demented as Sid's 
menagerie of deviant toys in one of its own sticky-sweet features?  
(Though Disney is distributing TOY STORY, it was developed independently 
by Pixar.)  While the "supporting toys" are quickly left behind, and 
consequently don't make much of an impression (Wallace Shawn's timorous 
dinosaur excepted), the lead vocal performances are first-rate; Tim 
Allen, in particular, is a revelation (especially for me, since I'd never 
seen/heard him before--I don't watch television, and I skipped THE SANTA 
CLAUSE).  I could make a few niggling complaints--Randy Newman's rather 
mediocre songs are unnecessary, and the film's gender politics are a bit 
antiquated--but to hell with it.  This is one of the best, funniest, most 
purely entertaining films in recent memory.  I loved it.