“Toy Story 5” asks: Can old toys survive a screen-obsessed world?

Toy Story 5

Pixar animation featuring the voices of Joan Cusack, Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Scarlett Spears, Greta Lee, Tony Hale, Conan O'Brien, Craig Robinson, Bonnie Hunt, Keanu Reeves, Kristen Schaal, Wallace Shawn, Annie Potts, Ernie Hudson, Jay Hernandez and John Ratzenberger. Written and directed by Andrew Stanton and Kenna Harris. Now playing at theatres everywhere. 102 minutes. G

⭐️⭐️⭐️ (out of 4)

Peter Howell

Movie Critic

Analog, meet frog: Modern tech jolts playtime as “Toy Story 5” riffs on how addictive new electronics crowd out old-fashioned fun.

An amphibian-shaped tablet, Lilypad, voiced by Greta Lee, upends the beloved crew led by cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack), cowboy Woody (Tom Hanks) and space ranger Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen). Red-haired Jessie is facing abandonment yet again — she’s endured this gut-punch twice before — because her latest owner, eight-year-old Bonnie (Scarlett Spears), can’t tear herself away from Lilypad’s hypnotic glow.

Sound familiar? There’s rich irony here since the franchise was itself a cultural disrupter with the original “Toy Story,” which shook up animation with the first all-computer-generated feature 31 years ago. Obsolescence, loss and longing are in the Pixar series’ DNA, although co-writers/directors Andrew Stanton and Kenna Harris charge up an old idea — “The age of toys is over!” — with enough heart and humour to power past a shortfall of originality.

I love seeing yodeller Jessie and her trusty steed Bullseye finally getting serious screentime, although Woody (now balding and paunchy) and Buzz (still yearning for Jessie) have their moments, too. The film’s best new characters are “the Double A Team,” a trio of discarded early-2000s tech toys that run on AA batteries: toilet trainer Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien), low-res camera Snappy (Shelby Rabara) and GPS-striving hippo Atlas (Craig Robinson), who add to the film’s genial mix of sentiment and silliness.

Other pluses are a score by the resurgent Randy Newman and a new country-pop song (“I Knew It, I Knew You”) by the ever-versatile Taylor Swift. Yet for all its abundant charms, “Toy Story 5” doesn’t reach the emotional depths of “Toy Story 3,” still the franchise’s finest chapter.

This new one does, however, have the saddest lament heard in all five films: “I can’t love another kid, just to find out I never mattered.” 🌛