Toy Story 5 plus Short Takes on other cinematic topics

Low-Tech Toys Win the Day

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue below [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.

  Toy Story 5 (Andrew Stanton)   rated PG   102 min.

Here’s the trailer:

      (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

      activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

 

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

 WHAT HAPPENS: To set up the main events we begin in the past with toy cowgirl Jessie (voice of Joan Cusack) happy to be with her first child owner, Emily, but we later learn as Emily grew up, abandoned her toys, Jessie was packed away in a box for a couple of years, leaving her with a fear of abandonment.   In the present we get another side event as a cargo ship loses a huge box of Buzz Lightyear toys (all voiced by Tim Allen) that wash up on a desert island until they collectively build a raft to follow the North Star where they’ll later join our main story, which is about Jessie and her horse, Bullseye, now with 8-year-old Bonnie (Scarlett Spears), along with most of the many other toys we’ve come to know since the debut of Toy Story (John Lasseter and others, 1995), which now reside at Bonnie’s home after cousin Andy gifted them to her when he went off to college.  Problems immediately arise when Bonnie’s parents, in an attempt to help this shy girl make some friends, give her a computer tablet, Lilypad (“Lily,” Greta Lee), so she can explore social media, meet some new girls.  She quickly gets addicted to screen-time, leading Jessie to confront Lily who then helps Bonnie meet Chelsea (actor voice not listed in credits), set up a sleepover.  As the toys suffer Bonnie’s neglect Jessie uses a walkie-talkie to contact Woody (Tom Hanks) who left the others at the end of Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley, 2019) to help Bo Beep (Annie Potts) find homes for lost toys.  Bonnie goes to Chelsea’s home, Jessie and Bullseye hiding in her suitcase until Bonnie finds them.

 Screen-obsessed Chelsea and her friends laugh at Bonnie for still playing with toys so Bonnie has Dad (Jay Hernandez) take them home.  They escape, are found by an elderly couple who see an old address on Bonnie’s chaps, so they take the toys there, where Jessie once lived with Emily.  Jessie ends up in a shed of forgotten toys, including potty-training Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien), camera Snappy (Shelby Rabara), and GPS receiver Atlas (Craig Robinson) who tell her a young girl, Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), now lives in the farmhouse; she discovers Jessie, they play together.  Woody rejoins his old friends, he and Buzz use Lily to locate Jessie and send a photo of her to Bonnie.  But when Mom (Lori Alan) drives Bonnie to the farmhouse the girl doesn’t want Jessie and Bullseye because she finds messages from Chelsea’s group ridiculing her for playing with toys.  ⇒Jessie then discovers a buried lunchbox containing a photo of adult Emily with her daughter named Jessie.  Separately, Buzz and Woody meet the other Buzzes who ultimately aid in bringing about another meeting between Bonnie and Blaze who bond over playing with toys, including a marriage between Jessie and the original Buzz; Woody rejoins Bo Beep, the big Buzz group is adopted by many children.⇐  I’ve tried to be concise, but you can find more plot details at this site.

SO WHAT? In my last posting (about Tuner) I left a teaser about a surprise for you this time which is that Nina and I finally went to a theater to see a movie for me to write about, something we hadn’t done since the summer of 2023 when on separate days we saw Barbie (Greta Gerwig) and Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan) but then retreated back into our COVID-concerned cave until last week when we once again chose a weekday afternoon showing after the object of our intention had been out for a couple of weeks so the theater wasn’t all-so-crowded as we enjoyed this marvelous animated feature with characters we’ve come to love for a few decades along with some interesting new ones.  As with previous franchise presentations, this story's fun to watch/easy to follow, visuals are marvelously done (especially in the scenes where the toys try to get Bonnie and Blaze together again), and the theme of how crucial friendship is for all of us is emotionally touching/universally-relatable, with the superb manifestation of that (at least for me) in Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010) where the toys fear they’re about to be incinerated so they hold hands (paws, whatever) to be together in their death (not the result or there’d be no Toy Story 4 or … 5), but I won’t venture further into Spoiler territory if you haven’t seen … 3 yet (if not, you should, but then all 5 of them are well worth your time; here's a link [12:24] with some connections between … 5 and the earlier movies).

 

 While it’s comforting to once again encounter so many characters I’ve become familiar with, it’s a further treat to have Jessie be the main focus as she easily matches Woody and Buzz in determination toward a goal, ability to accomplish it even if the outcome takes more time and effort than she originally intended.  We also get a very pertinent, useful critique on how so many in our contemporary societies—sadly including enormous numbers of children, even ones as young as Bonnie and Blaze—spend so many hours/days of their lives looking at various screens, interacting with social media platforms for some sort of verification (Oops!  I guess that includes cinema-analysis blogs where nearly 104,000 curious onlookers visited Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark last month!  But I do appreciate such expended effort.) rather than using their imaginations to expand their consciousness in personal ways instead of using these platforms to ridicule their neighbors.  (Now, whether certain politicians deserve such ridicule, that’s a thought for another day.)  Toy Story 5 moves quickly, can be understood by a wide range of generations, ultimately offering positive hopes for our collective future, so watch it when you can, either now or later on streaming.

BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: Toy Story 5 opened in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters June 19, 2026 at 4,425 of them (still in 3,975), was #1 at the box-office for the first 2 weeks (dropped to #2 last weekend to Minions & Monsters [Pierre Coffin]), so far has grossed $365.7 million ($763.7 worldwide), and isn’t streaming yet but this site might help in finding local tickets.  The CCAL encourages your theatrical attendance with Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 92%, Metacritic average score at 73% (of 16 2026 releases both they and I have rated none of theirs made it into the 80s, only 4 are in the 70s, so 73% is understandingly supportive from this stingy group).  Of the movie’s many supporters I’ll let Owen Gleiberman of Variety (MC 100) explain the enthusiasm: “These movies now add up to a canon greater than the sum of their boisterously funny, deliriously inventive parts. [… “Toy Story 5” is] a sublime summing up, a movie that reflects the whole series in its magic mirror, and (just maybe) a perfect ending. […] The film’s message is: Slow down, be real and play. The fun you take is equal to the fun you make.”  Yet, there are others not so easily impressed such as Amy Nicholson of the Los Angeles Times (MC  50): “Smart toys aren’t great for emotional development, but it’d be nice if the playthings of 'Toy Story 5' finally wised up. Once again, the franchise finds them horrified to face their obsolescence. […] Pixar doesn’t make repetitive sequels because it can’t think of original ideas. The problem is that audiences don’t reliably want to see them. We’ve clung on to these weary toys. Time to let go.”  Or, time for you to ease  up?

 

 I admit that while watching this movie I did have occasional thoughts about how the whole franchise seems to just recycle situations of toys in trouble who need Woody, Buzz, and anyone else who can help bring about a happy ending, but those endings are so heartwarming I can’t get as cynical as Ms. Nicholson.  To continue the theme of happiness overcoming misery I’ll close with a Musical Metaphor—in honor of her recent lavish wedding—Taylor Swift’s "I Knew It, I Knew You," written by her to use with the movie’s closing credits, where the lyrics “But seeing you tonight / I remembered I loved you / Came back when it mattered, I saw you / Standing there in the light of the window wearing that same smile / Man, it’s been awlhile / But I knew it, I knew you” on one level seem to speak of a past romance sparking up again but also imply Bonnie’s joyful reconnection with her toys, especially Jessie, that we’ve likewise known/loved for decades.  A final note from me, though: when listening to the Swift video I found my decades-older-than-her ears (78) couldn’t always follow her decades-younger-than-me voice (36)—I tried putting captions on the video, but I couldn’t get them out of Japanese—so if you also need help with the full flow of lyrics here they are.

           

SHORT TAKES

           

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

 

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

 

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

         

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

          

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 103,858.  (As always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

Tuner plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

It’s a “Safe” Bet After Seeing This Film You’ll Wish You’d Taken Piano Lessons When You Were a Kid

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue below [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.

 I’m a bit late in posting this week; instead of spending my usual Tuesday writing the text for these postings I spent the day with my wonderful wife, Nina Kindblad, celebrating our 36^th wedding anniversary, time well shared. Next week I’m back on a more usual basis; I’ll have a surprise for you.

             Tuner (Daniel Roher)   rated  R   107 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

WHAT HAPPENS: Elderly Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman) owns a piano tuning business where most of the work’s now done by his apprentice, Niki White (Leo Woodall), a young man with skill on the keys but who hasn’t played in years because he has hyperacusis which makes his ears very sensitive to loud noises so he usually wears noise-cancelling headphones except when he’s tuning because in quiet environments he has amazing abilities at hearing the proper notes with his perfect pitch.  Niki then works 2 jobs which eventually change his life: (1) At a music conservatory he meets Ruthie Waymon (Havana Rose Liu), nervously/diligently preparing for an audition for famed composer Marius Maissner (Jean Reno) in hopes of him taking her on as an assistant/trainee, (2) At a rich woman’s home he’s to tune a piano for an important event the next day, but the noisy preparations force him to come back that night when he's distracted by a new source of noise, the installation of a security system by Uri (Lior Raz) and his guys who, for a reason I didn’t catch, need to open the house safe so Niki moves them along by opening it himself (a self-taught skill to help Harry when he accidently locked his hearing aids in his own safe, then couldn’t remember the combination); Niki surmises Uri’s crew are thieves, even as he gets an invitation to join them.  That offer soon comes to pass when Harry suffers a heart attack, Niki learns from Harry’s wife, Marla (Tovah Feldshuh), the old man’s $36,000 in debt, so soon Niki’s a safe cracker earning a hefty tip as Uri takes various valuables which he sells for high prices; Niki keeps applying his ill-gotten earnings to Harry’s tab, then meets Ruthie again when water from her apartment ceiling splashes onto her own piano so she contacts Niki for help he eagerly provides, as a romance blossoms between them.

 Then things ultimately go bad after Niki gives Ruthie a stolen watch to replace one she lost from her grandmother (more on that shortly), his next job is to help some Korean crooks get a necessary password for their uncle’s cryptocurrency wallet, but armed Uncle Yong (C.S. Lee) comes in, forces Niki to eat the password paper, then the uncle’s shot from behind by Uri’s nephew, Benny (Nissan Sakira).  Harry dies, Uri forces Niki to open the uncle’s safe again but there’s no backup password (yet, Niki knows it having quickly memorized the original paper before he ate it), Niki rushes to Ruthie’s recital where Maissner’s impressed with her but sees her watch which belonged to his grandmother (died in the Holocaust), was stolen along with his grandfather’s watch from his safe; Niki comes clean about his night jobs, offers to make amends by retrieving grandfather’s watch.  ⇒However, he’s caught trying to open Uri’s safe, is beaten severely.  Waking up in a hospital Niki finds he’s partially deaf but no longer sensitive to loudness (also finds Uri left the watch for him).  Niki returns the watch to Maissner, now Ruthie’s mentor, then Niki plays a marvelous piano piece for her before noting the instrument needs tuning.⇐  You can find more plot details to discover at this site.

SO WHAT? Last week when I posted my review of The Christophers (Steven Soderbergh) I noted how that film about artistic painting took me back to my own life as a painter decades ago before I starting trying to find my artistic expression in writing/illustrating these blogs; well, this week’s film also gives me thoughts on my past, but in this case—just as the title of this posting alludes to—it’s about the piano lessons I never took, despite my mother’s ongoing request I do so (she had an ulterior motive, though, telling me if I’d take lessons so would she but not just on her own; how we could have afforded a piano for our necessary practice between lessons I have no idea, but we never got that far in the stubborn [on both our parts] debates about the lessons).  As best I remember, this is the only topic that I resisted her on (knowing full well what was likely to be the result if I challenged her on much of anything else), so I never took the lessons.  Watching the dexterity and marvelous music coming from Ruthie and Niki in this film (no matter how much of it resulted from the actors’ keyboard abilities or how talented stand-ins were able to leave a seamless result on screen so it easily looks like Liu and Woodall are actually in musical command of what we see) I have to admit a longing to be able to play that instrument even at 10% of what we encounter in Tuner, so, yeah, Mom, you were right on this failed insistence as I know that at 78 I’m not about to frustrate myself with seeking a piano teacher to help me try to stumble along on an electric keyboard (which I did attempt to do back in January of 1987, but a month later I met Nina and put aside all that needed practice time then [not that I’m complaining about how our time together has been/is spent]).

 So, I’ll just have to be content listening to piano virtuosos whenever I can encounter them, which I got a grand dose of in this film, while also appreciating the dedication Ruthie’s determined to bring to her art just as Niki tries to make the most of what he can hear fluidly when properly tuning pianos so that others can best showcase what ivories-wizardry they’re (hopefully) capable of.  We also get some useful moral lessons here about whether the end justifies the means as Niki knows he’s being a criminal but in order to help Harry just as Uri gives us a bit of rationale noting the stolen items probably will take a while to be missed, then their value will be compensated by insurance claims (except in cases like Maissner’s watches where their personal value is emotionally priceless).  All in all, this is a marvelous tale to watch, ponder, and appreciate which I'd hope you will consider doing.

BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: Tuner opened rather quietly in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on May 22, 2026, although its presence has been limited with the widest release at only 504 venues (down to 75 now), taking in so far a measly $4.2 million ($10.8 million worldwide); despite its limited big-screen presence, however, the CCAL actively encourages you to seek it out, with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at a very-encouraging 94%, while the normally-notably-lower Metacritic average score is 75%; you can find it on streaming for a $19.99 rental at Amazon Prime Video (but leaving there in 18 days) and Apple TV (same price rental can also be found at Fandango at Home, but I’ve given up on them because I tried to watch it there but could never get the captions function to engage despite multiple efforts, so that platform’s no longer of interest to me because both Nina and I need some audio help, even when wearing hearing aids).  For an example of a critic who really loved it, here’s Katie Walsh (MC 100) of the Chicago Tribune: “For the purposes of this screenplay, this world is small, and filled with coincidences, but there are twists and turns along the way that will make you gasp, as story beats click into place down the line. Roher also builds out this world with layers of culture, character and music — whether it’s the jazz musicians Harry ran with back in the day (Herbie Hancock makes a cameo), the serious conservatory students (Ruthie’s music is composed by Marius de Vries), or the underground raves thrown by the Israeli crew. […] It’s a thrill to watch this kind of original, adult movie that are all too rare these days, and Roher hits all the right notes with this move into narrative filmmaking.”  Go, girl!

 Yet, some will not be so pleased, as with Odie Henderson (MC 63) of the Boston Globe: “ ‘Tuner’ executes one audience-pleasing plot device too many, and the end result is infuriating. This is film so chock full of clichés that it plays like a montage of genres. It’s a heist movie, a buddy movie, a sweet romance, a violent actioner that’s unafraid to get nasty, a tale of missed musical opportunities, and the story of a guy whose painful sensory condition turns out to be a preternatural gift. [¶] This movie tries harder than a lover that’s done you dirty but wants you back big time. I couldn’t believe how many crowd-goosing moments are crammed into this contraption, none of which ring true.”  If you watch this film you might find yourself agreeing with Henderson, but I’ll say it’s another “safe” bet to listen to Walsh (and me); to conclude with my usual Musical Metaphor, I had trouble finding something appropriate even with Google searches for “songs about safecracking” and “songs about hearing loss” yielding little (at least that I’m familiar with) so I turned to Billy Joel’s "Piano Man" (1973 album named for the song) which isn’t a perfect match (though the place where Niki met Uri’s gang had a piano needing to be tuned for a Joel performance the next day), but the old man asking “Son, can you play me a memory” reminds me of Harry’s failing recall-ability while “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar / And say ‘Man, what are you doing here?’ “ seems to be somewhat in the vein of how Uri’s team sees Niki.  Anyway, I enjoyed it a lot, I highly recommend it.

        

SHORT TAKES

               

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

Here’s an opinion from The New York Times about the best 2026 movies so far.  I don’t even know anything about most of their citations, just The Christophers and Disclosure Day (Steven Spielberg).

 

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

 

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

 

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

           

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

                

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 103,858.  (As always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):