In November 1995, the groundbreaking Toy Story was released by Pixar, and it was the first ever 100% computer animated movie of all time. As the next 3 movies were released in 1999, 2010, and 2019, I have always been very impressed that the production team behind these great movies all realized that no amount of genius computer animation is going to be enough to cover up a bad screenplay. It makes no sense to spend many millions of dollars on top-notch computer animation for a bad story, so the quality of all the Toy Story movies has always been near the top of all animation films ever released.

For the 5th installment of this movie franchise, “Toy Story 5”, the central part of this story is a great one: “kids are no longer playing with toys, they are all on their cell phones or IPADs”. The main character in this story, Bonnie, a 7-year-old child, is having trouble making real friends, mainly due to kids spending too much time in front of screens. Then the gang of original toys, Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), and Jessie(Joan Cusack) come to the rescue. The problem with this very solid story idea that started out so well is that what follows is a way too convoluted, overly complicated series of about five parallel stories that no young child is ever going to be able to follow, much less any adult.

This movie looked like another one of those screenplays with too many screenwriters and not enough collaboration to meld all the ideas into a coherent, sequential story. I saw no reason to have so many stories running at once, with so many scenes switching back and forth for the entire two hours. After 31 years, unfortunately, this 5th installment in this important film series is mostly a miss, entirely due to a screenplay that should have been rewritten about ten more times.

One of the better reviews I have read about this film, written by Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian: “Meanwhile, Jessie, through a hugely convoluted plot complication that needs a rogue platoon of upgraded Buzzes to sort out, comes across a great kid called Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), a real horse lover and toy enthusiast who lives on a farm and could make a great best friend for Bonnie.”

I was also surprised that the Jessie character, played by Joan Cusack, dominated this entire movie at about 80%. Woody and Buzz Lightyear do appear in this movie, but far too little, which is another mistake that will disappoint many fans of these original great characters. Once again, we are all reminded of how difficult the art of screenwriting is, even with a film franchise that has created some of the best stories we have ever seen in movie history.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 95% are way too high, with my rating at 80% and a recommendation for the most die-hard Toy Story fans and another recommendation to see any one of the first four movies instead.