Lightyear

“Lightyear”

If you are of a certain age you grew up with Toy Story. You can't help it, there was no getting away from it. So you are probably in one of only two camps. The “Star Wars” George Lucas ruined my childhood camp, or you’re in the “Show me what you got” camp. I am personally in the latter. I’m all for it. You mean you're going to give me more of this thing that I know I love and it might possibly be GOOD!!! Sign me up. Very minor spoilers ahead. The ultimate hard sell on this picture, for me at least is the why or more importantly the where. So what is this movie? And they give it to you in the opening credits so like I said minor spoiler. This is the movie that Andy watched that made him want the Buzz Lightyear Toy for his birthday. OK DONE!!! Movie totally justified in my eyes right from the jump.

The reason why it's justified is because I am also of the generation of Star Wars. They immediately get me on point of reference. I grew up like a good portion of the men my age watching and loving Star Wars, and by that always wanted more action figures to act out the stories that I thought needed to be happening in that universe. Which at the heart of things is the part of Toy Story that fascinates us. So to stop reminiscing and get back on track. This movie is exactly what it needed to be FUN. Period end of story. It's fun. I mean they give you all the reasons and examples for why the Buzz toy says what he says. It also gives you a good amount of new fun characters. The toy cat that they don’t play up too hard in the trailers and a character that I thought I would hate ended up being my favorite thing in it. Is there subject matter or lifestyles that you might not agree with portrayed in this film? Yes, but it is not in your face or stuffed down your throat and in my opinion completely harmless.

So don’t listen to all that babble out there spinning around in the machine. This movie is simply put a nice window into a type of movie that can create such an effect on a boy that he loves a thing from his childhood so much that is tied to the love for this EXACT movie that it takes him 3 movies and leaving for college for him to give it up, but even then ONLY to a person who he felt was worthy of them. That's what those movies and those toys can do, and not just to boys but little girls too. Because when the lights go out, or in my case the sun goes down sometimes MAGIC HAPPENS.

*This movie review was originally published in The Current River Observer as the River Reels article written by Jeffrey Riggs