LIGHTYEAR (PG)
★★★II REVIEWS BY DAMON SMITH
IN 1996, a six-year-old boy named Andy supposedly received his Buzz Lightyear action figure in the first Toy Story film as an early birthday present, after a trip to the cinema with his mother to see an action-packed film about a courageous Space Ranger.
Writer-director Angus MacLane’s out-of-this-world computer-animated adventure is that picture.
Co-written by Jason Headley, Lightyear unfolds in a different universe from Pixar Animation Studios’ earlier work (the central character is voiced by Chris Evans rather than Tim Allen) but iconography from Andy’s playtime proliferates, including the threat of Emperor Zurg.
Buzz Lightyear (Evans) and commanding officer Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba) crash-land their spaceship with a manifest of 1,200 slumbering passengers on a planet of hostile insectoids. Marooned 4.2 million light years from home, the Space Rangers reanimate passengers to construct a fortified base from which to launch test flights of an experimental jet piloted by Buzz.
Unfortunately, time dilation dictates that for every minute Buzz spends travelling at hyperspeed, the people back at base age one year. Buzz sacrifices precious years with the people he loves to complete his mission, accompanied by a robotic cat sidekick named Sox (Peter Sohn), Alisha’s granddaughter Izzy (Keke Palmer) and rookies Mo (Taika Waititi) and Darby (Dale Soules).
In their way stands Emperor Zurg and an army of mechanised monstrosities.
Lightyear is a slickly orchestrated battle beyond the stars that melds high-stakes action and family-friendly comedy.
Diversity and positive representation are woven into the fabric of a script and vocal performances are polished, including droll comic relief from Waititi as a clumsy newbie.
Composer Michael Giacchino, who won an Oscar for his score for Up, tugs heartstrings here too, especially in the film’s emotional gut-punch that elegantly underlines a Buzz’s personal sacrifices. I wept like a leaky faucet.
Visuals are breathtaking and Sox is a great source of humour, but Lightyear is one of Pixar’s more forgettable offerings.
Compared with the thrilling earthbound escapades of Andy’s Buzz Lightyear figure over the past 25 years, child’s play comfortably wins out over intergalactic survival.
MacLane shoots for infinity and beyond like the film’s namesake but cannot quite escape the gravitational pull of high expectations.
In cinemas Friday