‘Lightyear’ Review: Buzz Lightyear Gets His Own Adventure. It’s Diverting Enough, But Doesn’t Give You a Buzz
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic“Lightyear,” the 26th Pixar film, has a premise that’s explained by the film’s opening title.
It seems that in 1995, Andy, the young hero of “Toy Story,” was given a Buzz Lightyear action figure as a present. That was because he’d seen a Buzz Lightyear movie and loved it. “Lightyear” is that movie.There are plenty of ways the Pixar wizards could have spun that premise.
One imagines a Buzz Lightyear origin story in which he’s a brash young upstart going through flight training. And since Buzz, in his curvy plastic spacesuit with the chartreuse trim and the bubble helmet, is the most futuristic of all the “Toy Story” playthings, one could envision that film unfolding within the most deliriously Pixarian of sci-fi kiddie landscapes.
But “Lightyear,” in its eminently conventional and likable way, is a far less audacious movie than that. As it opens, Buzz is already more or less the Buzz Lightyear we know — an absurdly overconfident test pilot who’s a gifted flier but also a delectable egomaniac, too cocksure for his own good, given to stunts he thinks he can pull off just because…he’s Buzz.
Read more on variety.com