Toy Story 4 movie review.

The Toy Story films are some of Pixar's greatest entries. Since putting the studio on the map back in 1995, the classic original film was followed up by two strong sequels in 1999 and 2010, considered by many among the few sequels as good as, if not better than the first. As their audience has matured, and are likely raising their own children, these films have grown up right alongside them, lacing in progressively mature and thoughtful ideas and character depth, becoming a franchise that only seems to improve thanks to the existence of its sequels.

In fact, even though the franchise had seemingly reached a natural stopping point with Toy Story 3, I guess there was more potential to be mined from this franchise. At least, that's what Pixar believed, with the release of this summer's Toy Story 4, a movie that by all accounts shouldn't work. Strong though the Toy Story franchise is, 3 just felt like a perfect ending, and with the added stigma of being the fourth entry, it screamed easy cash grab. But by some miracle, Toy Story 4 utterly shatters the fourth entry curse, continuing to add onto the legacy and depth of its franchise, with another witty, clever, heartfelt, excellent sequel.

"To Infinity and Beyond!" A Toy Story Retrospective: #3.

Toy Story 3 had a tumultuous life before it saw the big screen. With their contract ready to expire, Disney's contingency plan was to take Pixar's IP, and create direct-to-video sequels under the Circle 7 Animation banner, 3 being among them. This just seemed wrong, as Pixar's characters were nothing without their home studio bringing them to life, but if Pixar were to find a new distributor, it would threaten to take away the independence they'd enjoyed under Disney.

Thankfully, that never happened, as once Bog Iger took over from Michael Eisner as Disney CEO, one of his first acts was to buy Pixar outright, making the Disney castle their home forever. As a result, Circle 7 was scrapped, and so were the sequels. But... Toy Story 3 still sounded very enticing, and with their original creators back in control, this could be a continuation worth exploring. Coming at the end of their four year run of perfection, it was precisely that, sending its beloved characters off on a rich, entertaining, and appropriately bittersweet final note... at least, at the time.

Dark Phoenix movie review.

Before the MCU became the global titan that it is, Fox's X-Men film series laid the template for the modern superhero film as we know it. Beginning in 2000 with Bryan Singer's film, the series went through a twisty road of highs and lows, including the ill-advised Origins that almost cratered them. But with the addition of the new prequel entries, soon the franchise found its footing again, hitting its peak with Days of Future Past.

X-Men has always been the most elusive of Marvel's comic properties, the one series so successful, that Marvel themselves couldn't buy them back to be part of the MCU. But as they do, Disney eventually acquired Fox as a studio, so they can finally be part of that universe. But Fox still has two more films from that original timeline left to release, with this June's Dark Phoenix being the one to close off the original X-Men team storyline. And it's unfortunate, because this film sends them off not with a bang, but with a pathetic whimper.

"To Infinity and Beyond!" A Toy Story Retrospective: #2.

Pixar has always been a studio driven to perfectionism, and there's no better evidence of that - for better or worse - than Toy Story 2. As the film moved through various stages of production, including its home video release being shifted to theatrical, when the studio screened a rough cut, they felt they couldn't release the film in the state it was in. Against Disney's insistence, they scrapped a majority of the film, and reworked everything they'd tossed out from scratch.

Just to put things into perspective, this was nine months before the film's intended release. A tired John Lasseter, just off A Bug's Life, and his team worked themselves to the bone, sometimes to psychological breaks, and developing repetitive strains during production. Regardless of the film's quality, I can't condone that kind of crunch, and I'm certain Pixar regrets it for the effect it had. But by some sort of miracle, what should have been a nightmare, did in fact create another outstanding work. Toy Story 2 is every bit the incredible film as its predecessor, and in some areas may actually surpass it.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters movie review.

I didn't have many nice things to say about Gareth Edwards' Godzilla. I famously derided the film for how often it kept Toho's legendary atomic lizard and the monster mayhem offscreen, but even if I didn't have a problem with that, the fact that it kept cutting away to focus on aggressively boring human characters (led by a wooden Aaron Taylor-Johnson) made me grind my teeth in frustration, failing to be the Spielberg-esque creature feature it desperately wanted to be.

But cut to five years later, and Legendary Pictures have used it as a springboard to a larger shared universe, pitting Toho's many monsters against each other across various films, including in spin-off Kong: Skull Island. Going back to the Godzilla well, and with Edwards replaced by horror director Michael Dougherty, this sequel, King of the Monsters, should be an improvement. In some ways it is, but otherwise it's all status quo. A lot of the same issues that plagued the first film make a return in this follow-up, but with unique blunders tainting the final product.