Lightyear

 On the leadup to its release Lightyear was touted as a more serious Pixar outing, a proper sci fi film that within the Toy Story universe would be the launching point for the Buzz Lightyear toy line.

 Within its first few minutes, it's pretty clear that this is just a bog-standard Pixar movie - a kid's animated adventure that leans a little on sci fi trappings in the same way The Incredibles leaned on superhero tropes (to be clear, this is nowhere near as good as The Incredibles). Any attempts to mimic a proper movie are barely skin deep; characters are still hyperactive and mug constantly to the camera, the emotional beats are exaggerated and simplistic, and everything is pitched to an elementary school level.

 

 It's a bit unfair to judge a movie on expectations, especially when I may have misjudged its marketing. Even a middling Pixar movie is better than most of kid's anything, and it remains a fun, funny, and cool-looking adventure by any metric. But it's also very recognizable as a Pixar(tm) product that plays it completely safe while much braver stuff went directly to streaming before it. Maybe that's a statement.

 So yeah, there's a lot to like here: the designs are incredible, there's a lovely montage of an alien planet being terraformed organically integrated as the background to a story beat, the pacing is expertly judged (except for a weird aside with future sandwiches) and the action is fun. The plot holes and dumb errors and contrivances that are unforgivable for sci fi, but ok in a kid's movie; the formulaic character arcs are a bit harder to swallow, but they're handled with enough grace. The biggest shame here is the missed opportunity to aim a little higher, to make a movie not for Andy as a six-year old, but for when he was a little bit older and discovering Heinlein, Asimov, CJ  Cherryh or whatever. You know, a proper science fiction film, not yet another kid's adventure.