For ‘Toy Story,’ third time keeps the charm

If for no other reason than citing past precedent, "Toy Story 3" and Pixar deserve a special scratch-and-sniff sticker for pulling off what few film franchises rarely accomplish: delivering a third film worthy of its predecessors.

The first two "Toy Story" films share the enviable and rare honor of having a perfect 100% over at Rottentomatoes.com, a site that compiles the ratings and reviews of film critics across the country.

"Toy Story 3" will likely join in that distinction as it is a marvelous film, if not quite a great one.

At the heart of the "Toy Story" saga has always been the relationship between young Andy and his childhood toys, specifically the cowboy Woody (voiced perfectly once more by Tom Hanks) and the space adventurer, Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen).

Here the emphasis is less on that relationship necessarily and much more on the community developed by the toys through their years as Andy's willing playthings.

Early in the film as Andy prepares to head off for college, the toys debate their future. And already, signs of aging are setting in.

Mrs. Potato Head (Estelle Harris) has misplaced an eye, and the rest of the remaining toys — Jessie (Joan Cusack), Hamm (John Ratzenberger), Barbie (Jodi Benson), Slinky Dog (Blake Clark filling in for the late Jim Varney), Rex (Wallace Shawn), the green aliens (Jeff Pidgeon) — wear their worry that Andy will soon abandon them for adulthood on their plastic faces.

Woody attempts to reassure them that Andy will merely move them into a comfortable retirement in the attic but still their worry persists.

Besides, who will play with them now? What use are they now that their imaginative owner/playmate appears set for a life without them?

Such is the existential dilemma facing our familiar friends and it is a problem that only intensifies when Andy's mother (Laurie Metcalf) accidentally throws the toys out to the curb, further convincing Jessie, Buzz and the rest of the gang that Andy no longer cares for them.

Nor does it help that Andy has already packed Woody in a box marked for college.

But instead of college, the attic or even the trash, Woody and the rest of the toys inadvertently find themselves headed to Sunnyside Daycare Center. There they meet Lotso (Ned Beatty), a large strawberry scented bear who explains how life at Sunnyside works.

And the toys, save for Woody, like what they hear. Lotso shows them a world where kids play with toys endlessly, year after year as each new batch of children come into Sunnyside.

Better still, Sunnyside promises back massages, new batteries, spare parts and even a Ken (Michael Keaton) for Barbie — complete with a dream house.

"Toy Story 3" trailers hint at what's to come so there's little reason to belabor plot points here. Suffice it to say, things aren't quite what they seem at Sunnyside.

What this new film never hints at is the greatness of the earlier two films; in fact, "Toy Story 3" charts its own path, a darker one to be sure, but one that makes sense thematically.

If the film meanders early on (particularly after a fantastically clever opening sequence where we glimpse just what a child's imagination and some plastic toys are capable of) "Toy Story 3" comes into its own soon enough.

Once more, Pixar makes subtle use of 3D rather than going for that technology's most obvious gimmicks.

The animation here is gorgeous, the 3D working to add depth to the frame, giving the film's backgrounds room to breathe and audiences the opportunity to explore them.

Director Lee Unkrich does an especially nice job with his first solo directing gig — he co-directed Pixar's "Finding Nemo," "Monsters, Inc." and "Toy Story 2" and supervised the editing on several other Pixar films. Here he infuses "Toy Story 3" with a sense of urgency in its climatic final moments, scenes as intense as any Paul Greengrass film and as well edited as one.

And thematically, those scenes work almost better than anything in either of the earlier two films. It is nearly impossible not to reach for a tissue during any number of moments towards the film's concluding scenes.

That temptation is not necessarily the result of gooey sentimentalism but rather stems from the film's sincere efforts to examine the way we cycle through fads and toys (and things in general) only to cast them to the trash once their usefulness has been sufficiently exhausted.

That theme — in an animated summer blockbuster no less — underlies many of the best moments at the heart of "Toy Story 3," to say nothing of Barbie's passionate speech on authority and the governed or Buzz Lightyear's momentary conversion into a Spanish speaking Lothario.

Pixar can now safely add "Not Being ‘The Godfather III'" to its trophy case.

Grade: A-