Toy Story 4

The MOMENT it was announced that Pixar would continue telling the tale of children's playthings after their 3rd installment, it was met with derision. "It ended perfectly!" "It doesn't need to go on!" "This is a soulless attempt by Disney to make more money!"
All valid points, but for what we got, "Toy Story 4" is a fine epilogue to the story of one pull-string cowboy voiced by Forrest Gump.

So in the same vague way of how "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" established that children can create life from imagination, Bonnie, the little girl who all of Andy's toys went to at the end of "Toy Story 3," made an arts-&-crafts friend to get her through the first day of school...and as the good doctor who also animated spare bits into a living being said, "IT'S ALIVE!" This prompts Woody to find new purpose in wrangling this wayward toy into finding refuge in the refuse, since wouldn't you know it? Trusting a 4 year old to take care of your prized possession is a bad idea because she has essentially abandoned Woody to life on the margins of her playtime.  Due to shenanigans involving a vacation, an antique store, and a carnival, Woody manages to reconnect with a toy from his past to help improve the lives of all the toys he comes across.

Fun & heartwarming, truly a staple of Pixar movies at this point (except you "Good Dinosaur." You disappoint me at every level), this movie really shows the culminated growth of our Spirit of Loyalty residing inside a cowboy doll from the 50's. The new characters they introduced are also very enjoyable to watch as they all bring their own unique and quirky energy to the screen, and strangely enough, the standout character being that literal background character of a damsel character in Andy's room. They managed to turn Bo Peep of all people into a survivalist after Bear Gryll's own heart, taking the spirit of independent, completely capable female heroine in the same vein as Lara Croft, Rey from Star Wars, and other adventurous young women. With those praises out of the way, I cannot go on about how I feel about this movie without SPOILERS so see you after the cut.  But overall, this movie tickles your funny bone and tugs at your heartstrings; go see the end of this legacy of Pixar's first franchise.

Why do you even need a kit when you can literally make this guy from trash?!

Who remembers "Logan," the final movie of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine as he finds a new purpose in caring for a younger, more inexperienced one of his kind and then, with his purpose fulfilled, fades away from the franchise?

Think about it! The "Toy Story" movies have really been about the journey of Woody just as most of the "X-men" movies have been primarily about Wolverine. Sometimes you forget that they're the main character because of their being part of an ensemble cast, being overshadowed by all the wondrous personalities and lovable quirks each toy brought to the party.  So when this last movie decides to focus on the growth of the main character, sometimes, people will get blindsided that this is essentially his movie and all other beloved characters established before will be pushed to the side or have their roles diminished immensely.  While "Logan" has their main character die, and Woody in this movie runs off after a tearful farewell to his friends, his family really, the effect is roughly the same. They pass their heroic legacy on and they will never be seen by them again. All this in the name of making sure that everyone, including themselves, can finally be at peace. While I'll admit that's a bit of a stretch, the finality of it really hit me hard in a place I didn't know was aching. 

As mentioned before, the new characters really do their best to make you forget that the previous cast of characters were barely part of this picture. Some people might even take issue with the fact that Buzz Lightyear is no longer the confident in-control action hero he thinks he is, needing to rely on his newfound wisdom of inner-voice-Magic-8-Ball-isms, but to be honest, he was always kind of a goof and a poser so this new characterization sits fine with me.  But back to the new toys, of particular note is how well they handled their villain this time. In the first movie, their main antagonist was just a destructive child, nothing huge there. In the 2nd movie, that was shared between a greedy Wayne Knight and a bitter Kelsey Grammar. The 3rd culminated in a truly-broken-inside, nihilist, pink teddy bear and that bugger was somebody everybody loves to hate. But now, they gave us a relatively despicable character, motivated by her own selfish goals, and then they redeem her character lickity split! Some might call that lazy, but I think it's a great way to have your antagonist's arc be completed without making them straight-up evil. 

Way to go Pixar. Now give us that cool original content we've been craving since "Coco."