Knee-jerk review: "Lightyear"

1. It certainly looks good.  As a science fiction action story, it's appropriately packed full of cool rockets and laser guns and spacesuits and alien robots.  It's all very tactile and visceral.
2. Other than that, however, when it was over, we just sort of shrugged.  It's... fine.  But if you're looking for top shelf Pixar story magic, you're probably going to be disappointed.
3. We understand the convoluted meta story reason behind not having Tim Allen voice Buzz.  In the fictional universe of Toy Story, Allen voiced the toy that was based on this movie.  The movie had one actor, you see, and the toy company had to get another actor to do the toy voice.  Whatever.  We suspect the real reason has something to do with politics and/or actor fees.  Regardless, if you're making a Buzz Lightyear movie, you need Tim Allen.  Period.
4. There are numerous story elements here that do the job - the robot cat Sox, the ragtag team of wannabe Space Rangers, some mocking of Buzz's love of captain's log-style narration - but we're left with a nagging feeling that the whole thing just should have been sharper and funnier.  It's all so strangely flat and dull.
5. On one hand, we have to admire the courage to open the movie with Buzz making a horrible miscalculation that affects what seem to be thousands of people.  On the other hand, that's a very weird way to start a movie.  (That off-center vibe gets pushed even further with Buzz undertaking a series of test flights that involve time dilation.  It's way out there for a family movie.)
6. Even with a team of brilliant scientists there's no way we buy that people could build a giant high tech spaceport from scratch in a handful of years.  That's the sort of logic leap that can completely undermine a movie.
7. The third act twist seems fun at first, but then you start to realize that the movie cannot clearly explain why exactly that twist happened.
8. Coolest thing by far is the little gizmo that transports any object it's attached to directly onto the alien ship.
9. Judging by the trailer we saw in front of Lightyear, the next Minions movie is going to be a lot more fun.

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