Toy Story 2

Toy Story 2 is a sequel worth making, and we recommend it even to anyone who thinks they have outgrown talking toys. Director John Lasseter takes a familiar childhood attachment seriously: a toy can matter enormously to someone who will eventually stop needing it. The comedy grows from giving those objects enough awareness to worry about that prospect. There is plenty of action, but the fear of being forgotten is what makes the film stay with us.

The screenplay by Doug Chamberlin, Rita Hsiao, Andrew Stanton and Chris Webb gives the toys concerns that children can understand without restricting what adults might feel. Loyalty is a practical problem here, something characters have to act on, rather than a lesson pasted over the adventure. The jokes allow different ages to enjoy the same film together instead of taking turns. Some of the knowing humour is less durable than the characters, but the writing rarely treats cleverness as sufficient entertainment.

Tom Hanks gives Woody a warmth that makes his worries matter, while Tim Allen’s Buzz Lightyear provides a firmer comic delivery. Their voices remain distinct without sounding as though they belong in different films. Joan Cusack’s Jessie adds energy and, more importantly, an emotional life that does not simply repeat Woody’s. The pleasure of the voice work is how little effort it appears to require; nobody sounds as though they are straining to make an impression over the animation.

Sharon Calahan’s cinematography makes the toys look solid enough to pick up, and keeps their expressions readable within that near-real finish. William Cone and Jim Pearson’s production design helps these familiar objects sustain a whole feature without losing their everyday character. That matters because they must still look like things a child might leave behind. The technical polish works because it encourages affection for the toys, rather than simply inviting us to inspect how convincingly they have been made.

Randy Newman’s music is especially valuable because the film needs room for sadness as well as bustle. Jessie’s song, ‘When She Loved Me’, moved us more than we expected. That sadness comes from recognising how casually children can put aside something they once loved. The song takes that attachment seriously, and its tenderness makes the comedy elsewhere more welcome: these characters have feelings worth sparing.

Editors Edie Ichioka, Lee Unkrich and David Ian Salter keep the film brisk across its 92 minutes without making the quieter material seem like an interruption. The reservation is with some of Lasseter’s action staging, which feels more dutiful than inventive. Movement occasionally supplies excitement that the situation itself has not quite earned. These passages are competently assembled, but they are where the sequel feels least fresh.

Children do not need to grasp every worry here for the jokes to work. Adults may recognise rather more than they expected in the toys’ dependence on somebody else’s affection. By the standards of family sequels, it gives both audiences an uncommon amount to think about without making either sit through a lecture. See it with children if possible, but there is no need to borrow any.