Toy Story 2 (1999)
The Cast
Tom Hanks ... Woody
Tim Allen ... Buzz Lightyear
Joan Cusack ... Jessie, the Yodeling Cowgirl
Kelsey Grammer ... Stinky Pete the Prospector
Don Rickles ... Mr. Potato Head
Jim Varney ... Slinky Dog
Wallace Shawn ... Rex the Green Dinosaur
John Ratzenberger ... Hamm the Piggy Bank
Annie Potts ... Bo Peep
Wayne Knight ... Al the Toy Collector
John Morris ... Andy
Laurie Metcalf ... Andy's Mom
Estelle Harris ... Mrs. Potato Head
Jodi Benson ... Tour Guide Barbie/Barbie on Backpack
Joe Ranft ... Wheezy the Penguin
Andrew Stanton ... Evil Emperor Zurg
R. Lee Ermey ... Army Sarge
When lists are made about the Best Movie Sequels of All Time, rarely do I ever see Toy Story 2 on those lists. I'm not entirely sure why that is. Is it just flying under the radar too much as an animated film? Not one of the three Top Five Sequels lists we here at topfive_reviews have posted, mentions Toy Story 2. Not even an honourable mention. That makes me a sad panda dog.
Right off the bat, let me say that Toy Story 2 ended up being far better than it had any right to be. Originally envisioned by Disney as a straight-to-video sequel, the folks at Pixar decided they didn't want to sully their good name by lending it to an inferior product. So they expanded on the original sequel idea, pumped up the running time with even more awesomeness and ended up with one of the most underrated movies of all time. I say this despite it's 100% rating at RottenTomatoes, and its score of 87 at Metacritic. How is that such a critically lauded film can seemingly be so easily forgettable? Perhaps it was just a case of people enjoying themselves but not being able to put it on the same level that they felt after watching the first Toy Story. Whatever it is, people need to get over it because Toy Story 2 is nothing short of excellent and it should be hailed as nothing but.
The entire voice cast of the first Toy Story return to their respective characters, giving them a little more depth and showing off a bit of the knowledge they gained in the past few... well I was going to say years, but it appears hardly anytime has passed at all. Andy (Morris) is still a kid, his sister Molly is still a baby, and his mom (Metcalf) is still single, which is odd enough for a Disney film. Woody (Hanks) and Buzz (Allen) are getting along famously and the rest of the toys are loving their pseudo-lives. Unfortunately disaster strikes as Woody's arm suffers a tear just before he was about to go off to Cowboy Camp with Andy, resulting in Andy's mom retiring Woody to the dusty shelf where broken toys die. All of this leads to Woody being stolen by Al the Toy Collector (Knight) at a yard sale, and eventually results in the introduction of Woody's old gang of similarly-themed toys. The story is really deep and amazing actually, I'm not doing it any justice at all here.
If you loved Toy Story, the sequel is just as good - if not better - and takes you on a much greater emotional rollercoaster than the first managed to do. The best example I can think of for this is Jessie's (Cusack) song, a little musical interlude that for my money is one of the best uses of a song in a movie ever. The fact that it's a Sarah McLachlan song and l'm still touched by it shows you exactly how powerful that piece of cinema is to me. The song perfectly captures Jessie's feelings, and just how crazy she may go if things don't turn out for the best. And it's not just the song, but the gorgeous Pixar animation and scene-setting, it gets me a little glassy-eyed everytime.
Everything about Toy Story 2 is excellent and awesome. From the Buzz / Zurg storyline to the absolute chaos the toys cause on their way to rescue Woody to the awesome Wheezy the Penguin (Ranft), everything solidly rocks hard. It's not one of the general cash-in on the name value of the original sequels. The characters grow and mature in ways that usually aren't ever seen in animated kid flicks. The jokes are funny without insulting anyone's intelligence, the animation is jaw-droppingly gorgeous and the running time is nowhere near the bloated levels most sequels shoot for. At Pixar, they almost always value quality over quantity, and Toy Story 2 is simply one of the best movie sequels of all time because of that ideal.
5 / 5