There comes a point in every Toy Story film when the toys realise they are being replaced. In the first film, it was Buzz Lightyear. Later, it was the inevitability of growing up. In Toy Story 5the competition does not arrive with plastic limbs or a catchy catchphrase. It comes fully charged, Wi-Fi-enabled and permanently attached to a child’s hand.
Pixar’s latest sequel understands a truth many parents have been quietly grappling with for years: toys are no longer competing with other toys. They are competing with screens.
Thirty years after Woody first pulled audiences into Andy’s bedroom, Toy Story 5 returns with a surprisingly contemporary identity crisis. While the film occasionally struggles to justify why this franchise needed a fifth chapter, it finds enough emotional honesty within that dilemma to make the journey worthwhile.
The story follows Bonnie, who has become increasingly attached to Lilypad, a child-friendly smart device that quickly becomes the centre of her world. For Jessie, who steps into a larger leadership role this time around, the shift feels less like a phase and more like an existential threat. Toys have spent decades worrying about being forgotten, donated or outgrown. Now, they are confronting something entirely different: a childhood that may no longer need them in quite the same way.
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When screens become the new rival
It is a clever premise because it feels uncomfortably familiar.
The film’s smartest decision is making Jessie its emotional anchor. Joan Cusack’s cowgirl has long been one of the franchise’s most emotionally resonant characters, and here she finally gets the space to carry the narrative. Her growing anxiety about losing Bonnie to technology echoes Woody’s fears from the original film, but it never feels like a simple rehash. Instead, it reflects a distinctly modern cultural anxiety.
After all, this may be the first Toy Story film in which the villain is neither a toy, a collector nor abandonment itself. It is distraction.
Pixar deserves credit for refusing to turn that idea into a simplistic lecture about technology. Toy Story 5 never argues that screens are inherently harmful or that children should abandon technology altogether. Instead, it asks a more complicated question: what happens when imagination becomes increasingly mediated through devices designed to hold our attention?
Jessie takes centre stage
Woody and Buzz, voiced once again by Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, remain important presences, though Pixar wisely avoids making them the sole focus. Their reduced roles allow newer characters and relationships to emerge without the film feeling trapped by nostalgia. It is a balancing act the franchise has struggled with before, but one that largely works here.
Visually, Pixar continues to operate at a level most animation studios can only admire from afar. The animation is stunning, but more importantly, it remains emotionally precise. The studio still finds extraordinary meaning in small gestures: a toy waiting to be picked up, a glance across a room, or a child absent-mindedly reaching for a screen instead of a favourite plaything.
The action sequences are inventive, but it is the quieter moments that leave the stronger impression.
A familiar story with a timely message
The film is also genuinely funny, often finding humour in the absurdity of toys trying to understand a digital world they were never designed for.
That said, Toy Story 5 occasionally feels the weight of being the fifth entry in a franchise that has arguably already delivered its perfect farewell more than once.
Themes such as belonging, relevance and purpose have defined the series from the very beginning. While the technological angle brings freshness, there are moments when the narrative circles back to familiar emotional territory. Certain supporting characters remain underdeveloped, and a few subplots feel more functional than essential.
The film’s message can also feel slightly too neat at times. Real-world conversations about technology, childhood and shrinking attention spans are far messier than the film occasionally allows. Still, these shortcomings never entirely undermine what works.
What makes Toy Story 5 resonate is not the adventure itself, but the uncomfortable recognition buried beneath it. Every generation leaves something behind. For Andy, it was his toys. For Bonnie, it may simply be play itself.
The film does not mourn technology. It mourns the shrinking space between boredom and imagination.
So no, Toy Story 5 is not Pixar at its most inventive. Nor does it reach the emotional devastation of Toy Story 3 or the existential elegance of Toy Story 4.
Yet somewhere between Jessie’s anxieties, Bonnie’s distractions and Woody’s familiar wisdom, the film lands on something unexpectedly poignant. The fear of becoming irrelevant never truly disappears; it simply changes shape.
And if Pixar can still make adults emotional over a group of toys having an identity crisis three decades later, perhaps there is still some magic left in the toy box.
Toy Story 5 releases in India on June 19.
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