Movie Review: Lightyear

Buzz Lightyear is an icon for many who grew up watching the Toy Story series when they were younger. A fictional toy owned by Andy and keen favourite among the gang, Buzz has soared into many hearts with his heroic nature and uncompromised values. This nature embedded in the action figure through his overall design and voice lines all stems from the movie about the titular character. As in the actual history of Toy Story Andy only got his Buzz Lightyear action figure after his mum took him to see that movie. Now, over 26 years later, we now get to see that film for ourselves as Disney and Pixar officially released their 2nd 2022 feature film aptly named Lightyear.

Lightyear is directed by Angus MacLane in his first time directorial debut at Pixar and also stars Chris Evans in the lead role as Buzz Lightyear. As noted prior the films premise is based on the fictional exploits of Buzz Lightyear, a space ranger who is part of Star Command; a galactic organisation currently out on a colonisation mission. During a routine monitoring mission on a potential habitable planet, Buzz and the crew of the colonisation ship end up stranded on the planet after trying to escape it's deadly hazards. The film then follows Buzz as he attempts to refine and test out a new source of hyperspace fuel in hopes of getting the colonists off the barren planet. The catch is however, every time Buzz tests out the fuel, the time dilation sends him forward 7 years into the future. After enough trials Buzz ends up in a mysterious future in which all his familiar friend have passed on and a menacing robot army is attempting to overthrow the colony and capture Buzz.

As far as narratives go, I wasn't having too bad a time with the film for the most part. I think it embodies all the same aspects of the Buzz we know from Toy Story and gives him a nicely fleshed out backstory. I was a bit skeptical with Tim Allen not coming back to voice the character but I feel Chris Evans does a great job in filling in for the character. He plays Lightyear with an endearing sense of duty but an obvious layer of flaws the film tries to reflect on over the course of the movie. The setup for Buzz's personal plight is really well set up too, I like the idea of him sacrificing seven years every time to fix a mistake he feel he made, it reinforces why Lightyear is such a figurehead in that universe and why Andy looks up to him as a superhero. The relationship Buzz has with other characters is strained because he approaches his missions on his own capabilities, but as the film progresses you see him begin to open up a bit and all that stuff is a really nice fit to make his character more grounded. I don't have much of a problem with the film up until Zurg pops into the picture. I won't spoil why Zurg's inclusion irked me so much but I just felt like the film tried to play it smart but all it ended up doing is overcomplicating things and made the character of Zurg in this movie and Toy Story films feel a bit watered down now we have context to who he is. Fleshing out Buzz is a fine enough concept because we get this was the film Andy saw, but their attempt to flesh out Zurg doesn't hit nearly as well in my opinion.

I can't fault the film's runtime or pacing either, it's a nice 160 minute breeze where I feel all the necessary plot beats are encompassed in it's duration easily enough. Also, goes without saying but animation quality is always top tier for Pixar and while there's no distinct art style to this like there was in Luca or Turning Red,;it's impossible not to appreciate the calibre of animation this studio is capable of outputting every time. 

As far as films go, I think you're going to have a moderately fun time with Lightyear. It does a great job in establishing a backstory for the tittular character that I can see Andy would have definitely enjoyed during his trip to the cinema 26 years ago. I think it grounds Lightyear in a lot of aspects too and helps flesh out all the dialogue and designs he had in his toy all those years ago. Despite a few missteps here and there with the Zurg plotline I don't think it necessarily detracts from the quality of the movie all that much, it's a fun film at the end of the day.