Toy Story

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Starring	Voices of Tom Hanks, Tim Allen
Director	John Lasseter
Year	1995
What it's worth		Full price (Pay whatever you must to see this movie!)

Disney's latest animated feature is a bit different than their norm; this one was animated entirely by computer, and it ought to make the hard-working artists in their studios a little nervous. From frame one, even the Disney logo is computer-drawn, and the amazing thing is that you forget all that within five minutes of the movie's start. This is a herculean effort that takes this technology a huge step forward, just like Who Framed Roger Rabbit did about five years ago.

Toy Story reveals the secret life of toys who, as we've always suspected, come to life when we're not around. The toys in this story live in the room of a boy named Andy, and the leader of the toys is Andy's favorite, a Roy Rogers-style cowboy named Woody (Tom Hanks). Woody is an easy-going fellow, until his position is threatened by a new whiz-bang toy named Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), an astronaut action figure with the works.

Woody and Buzz's jockeying for position leave them stranded away from home, and in typical buddy-movie style, their only way to make it back in one piece is to learn to get along and join forces. They visit such strange lands as the local pizza parlor and the nasty boy next door's room. And each scene is rendered in amazing detail and clarity, right down to the rust spots on trucks and smudge marks on the door, that make you accept these characters as being as realistic as any live actor or standard animation.

Part of the fun, too, is the cast of supporting characters. While Woody and Buzz didn't have real-life counterparts until the Disney marketing machine starts cranking out movie paraphernalia, many of the other toys are easily recognizeable from our own childhoods. The voice acting for both known and unknown toys is excellent; Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head is the best casting for him I've seen in years. Jim Varney makes a wonderful, laid-back Slinky Dog. And Annie Potts is the sexiest Little Bo Peep to be found outside of slimy back room parlors. Wallace Shawn, best known to most as the "inconceivable!" guy from Princess Bride does a hilarious turn as a wimpy Tyrannasaurus Rex doll.

As much as I liked this movie, I did have one quibble with it; it doesn't do a good job of setting up the rules of logic for how the toys interact with the real world. Buzz Lightyear spends most of the movie believing he's real, which made me wonder why he didn't just stand up and try to have a chat with Andy. It's a problem that may not occur to most until after they leave the theater, but it did present one mar on what was otherwise a beautiful, well- polished surface.

Take your kids, take your parents. Adults will get as much a kick out of this movie as children. It may not be suitable for extremely young children; the concept of being lost and the nasty boy's room are pretty creepy and may be a bit much for the extremely impressionable. Other than that, though, this is a movie that everyone can enjoy immensely.

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