Lightyear Review

 

Lightyear is a 3-D animated science fiction action adventure film and a spin-off of the Toy Story film series. The movie's produced by Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Lightyear is written by Angus MacLane and Jason Headley and directed by Angus MacLane.

The story is Buzz Lightyear and his crew have stuck on a hostile planet that's 4.2 million light-years from Earth. He's only hope is to solve this problem along with a group of ambitious crew and their robot cat companion. But matters get even more complicated with the arrival of Zurg and his ruthless army of robots.

Initial Reaction

The reasons for wanting to see Lightyear are simple. 1) Buzz is my favorite Toy Story character. So much so that not only did I watch the movie Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins and the series, but I also got the toys and played with them a lot. And 2) I really dug the marketing. It really looked like this could be an exciting sci-fi movie.

Cons

The only thing I hated was the post-credit scene. All it was was a joke about how a robot was going over instructions, then turns around and finds out that everyone is gone. When are studios gonna knock it off with these pointless joke credits. For real, they serve no real purpose, and it makes a lot people (myself included) feel like they just wasted their time.

Middle Ground

One of the two biggest mix bags with the movie is the humor. I thought from the human characters it was fine. Honestly I felt like the best came from Sox. I thought he was pretty funny. The other mix bag was Buzz, he's crew, and Zurg. I'll get into the Buzz part later, anyhow really even though I didn't have a problem with them, at the same time I will admit that I won't be surprised if nobody remembers them and only remember Buzz and Zurg. Which is a perfect time to discuss those two. Once again, they fine. Buzz is just a decent sci-fi hero at best. Which kinda makes it odd considering this was the character that got a toyline in the Toy Story universe. Then there's Zurg. Again, he's an alright character, but I can see the big twist with really dividing people. I myself really don't know how I feel about it.

Pros

Now I'll keep this brief, yes the animation is amazing. Pixar can do no wrong when it comes to animation. Another pro to the film is Chris Evans. Yes, it does take awhile to get use to his voice when you're so use to Tim Allen, but by the end of the movie, I thought he did a pretty good job. The last thing I'll give credit where it's due is the overlook of the movie. Even though the story is just okay, the art style and cinematography are great. Unlike Pixar's last film [Turning Red], this had a great cinematic flare to it.

Even though Lightyear wasn't as great as I was hoping, it's not too bad. We got some great animation, a good look to the film, and Chris's voice for Buzz was pretty good. The more decent aspects are the humor and characters. Not bad, just decent. The only stupid thing was the post-credit scene. Seriously, Disney, Marvel, or any other studio, STOP WITH THESE POINTLESS JOKE CREDIT SCENES! Everyone is feed up with them!

My final rating is Okay.

So that's going to do it for me. Come back on Monday, Jun 20th for my review of season two of The Umbrella Academy. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.