Video review: "Toy Story 4"

I enjoyed “Toy Story 4,” though I’m not terribly happy they made it.

That may sound strange, but here’s why: “Toy Story 3” was a very conscious end to the animated franchise. In it the child Andy, now all grown into a young man, gave away his toys to little Bonnie, and quite literally rode off into the sunset.

Cowboy Woody (voice of Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen) and the rest of the toys, who come to life when humans aren’t around, had completed their life’s journey and started anew.

Watching them come back for another romp that’s fun but hardly up to the standards of the other movies is like going to see a favorite singer who’s now aged and can’t hold the notes anymore. You enjoy being around him, but can’t help thinking it would’ve been better for everyone if he’d hung it up.

In this story the toy gang finds themselves in a remote mountain village, where Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks) is the evil/warped toy du jour. She’s of roughly the same vintage as Woody, and resents that she never got a child of her own.

The big twist is the return of Bo Peep (Annie Potts), Woody’s former girlfriend who disappeared long ago. She’s now a free-living, adventure-seeking “lost toy” who embraces her independence.

As I said, I doubt anyone who likes these movies will fail to be entertained by “Toy Story 4.” But let’s put it this way: I had to look up my review of the movie from just three months ago, because the story and details had already faded from my memory.

That never happened with the other “Toy Story” movies. They stick in the mind and the heart.

Bonus features are pretty good. There’s an audio commentary track, six deleted scenes and the following documentary shorts: “Toy Stories,” “Woody & Buzz,” “Bo Rebooted,” “Toy Box” and “Let’s Ride With Ally Maki.”

Digital-only material includes one additional deleted scene and another featurette, “Anatomy of a Scene: Prologue.”

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Review: "Toy Story 4"

“Toy Story 4” is like one last rodeo with the old gang, an unexpected revival long after we thought they’d retired. It doesn’t have the energy or emotionality of any of the others, but it’s nice to see the old-timers back up to their old tricks.

A fourth feature for the cornerstone Pixar Animation franchise seems unnecessary. After all, the third one from nine years ago felt like a very conspicuous wrapping of the bow, as the little family of toys who come to life when people aren’t around were passed on from Andy, now all grown up, to adorable pre-K Bonnie.

And yet, here we are.

Not much time has passed since Bonnie became “their kid,” although a flashback to nine years earlier shows us how Bo Peep (Annie Potts), the love interest of Woody the cowboy sheriff (Tom Hanks), disappeared between the second and third movies. It seems she didn’t share Woody’s enthusiasm for “always being there” for their kid, so when Andy’s sister decided to pass Bo on to another child, she was ready to go.

She returns triumphantly, in a much more athletic iteration than we remember. Eschewing her modest shepherdess’ cape and laughing off a broken arm kept attached with tape, Bo swings and swoops all around using her hooked staff and a bottomless reserve of guts. She embraces her status as a “lost toy” free of human constraints.

She’s practically a toy superhero.

When Bonnie’s family goes on a road trip in an RV, it reveals fractures in the toy universe. Woody chafes at no longer being the head toy calling the shots. Even worse, he’s fallen out of Bonnie’s rotation of favored toys, often relegated to the back of the closet during playtime.

Still, his sense of loyalty remains true when Bonnie goes off to kindergarten and creates a toy of her own from a plastic spork and pipe cleaners. Woody and the gang are surprised when the creature springs to life, raising all sorts of metaphysical questions about the Toy Story universe.

Dubbed Forky (voice of Tony Hale), the new tribe member at first is very confused and self-endangering. Since he was made out of spare parts, he insists that he’s trash and keeps trying to escape to the nearest garbage bin, requiring repeated rescuing from Woody.

At first I thought this was an attempt to introduce a mentally challenged toy, which would’ve been an interesting development. But Forky gets wiser with time, and eventually grows to embrace the toy ethos.

Part of his tutelage comes at the knee of Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks), a vintage toy stuck in an antique shop in the mountain town of Grand Basin. She’s seemingly benevolent, but resents that she’s never had a kid to call her own. She blames it on her malfunctioning voice box, and sets her designs on claiming Woody’s.

Gabby is portrayed as more misguided than evil, though she employs a force of identical ventriloquist dolls who act as her muscle, and are as creepy as all get out.

Other new characters include Duke Caboom (Keanu Reeves), a Canadian motorcycle daredevil who’s lost his nerve; Giggle McDimples (Ally Maki), a pint-sized police officer who acts as Bo’s shoulder-riding sidekick; and Bunny and Ducky (Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key), a pair of long-suffering plush toys stitched together hand-to-hand who’ve spent an eternity as the top prize at a malfunctioning carnival duck hunt arcade.

Directed by Josh Cooley from a screenplay by Andrew Stanton and Stephany Folsom, “Toy Story 4” is easily the weakest of the series, but it’s still a fun ride. It seems the sendoff was not their final bow, and they’re destined to keep collecting nostalgia curtain calls.

Video review: "Us"

I think the best kind of horror films, particularly those with a supernatural edge, are the ones that don’t try to explain everything to you. They just present a confounding mystery, and let it hang there.

One of my favorite of recent years was “It Follows,” in which people are inexplicably pursued by relentless doppelgangers. I would add “Us” to the list.

Writer/director Jordan Peele’s sophomore effort is superior, in my opinion, to his previous venture, the smash hit “Get Out.” Lupita Nyong’o stars as a seemingly normal woman with darkness in her past that will catch up to her and her family.

Thirty years ago as a child, Adelaide had a chilling experience inside a carnival funhouse, where the image in the mirror turned out to be a real live reflection. Now that person, who has grown up just as she did, returns to the “real” world to exact a blood-soaked revenge.

I don’t want to give away too much, since the very appeal of “Us” lies in its teasing out information and surprises. Suffice it to say, Adelaide isn’t the only one with a nefarious shade following her around.

Winston Duke plays her husband, Gabe, a good-natured guy; Evan Alex plays their son, Jason, who has a few disturbing aspects to his own personality; and Shahadi Wright Joseph is teen daughter, Zora, who makes a show of her independence until it’s time to fall back on her family.

The big twist of the movie wasn’t a surprise for me, but I watch a lot of films and there’s only so many tricks in the bag. But it’s still a very satisfying ending to a terrific movie fraught with frights.

Bonus features are quite expansive and include six deleted scenes, funny outtakes and an extended version of the dance sequence. There’s also an in-depth exploration of the making of three pivotal scenes and five documentary shorts.

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Review: "Us"

“How many of everybody is there going to be?”

“Us” is top-drawer horror, a creepily convincing modern fable that haunts our hearts without getting caught up in the busy semantics of explaining everything. Like “It Follows” from a few years ago, there is a weird, existential threat and all you really need to know about it is that it’s coming for you.

Being of the horror genre its effectiveness is somewhat attenuated by obedience to tried-and-true tropes. The story moves quickly from brutal house-to-house disturbances to systemic society-wide chaos in a hurried way that feels like a reach. And because you know there’s going to be a big twist, it turns out to be not nearly twisty enough.

Seriously, I had it figured out halfway through. So would anyone who’s watched movies, I think.

That quibble aside, this is a much more interesting and better picture than Jordan Peele’s “Get Out,” which I thought solid but overpraised. “Us” has a tactile feel to it, and it’s almost as if we can sense the scrape of scissors against skin or the globby drops of sticky blood.

Lupito Nyong’o plays Adelaide, a 40ish wife and mother of a prosperous, happy family. They are heading to their summer home near the beach: her husband, Gabe (Winston Duke), is big, goofy and loveable; their daughter, Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph), is a typical teen girl, plugged into her phone and tuned out of her family; and son, Jason (Evan Alex), is pleasant if a bit odd, prone to occasional epithets and wearing a monster mask wherever he goes.

This same beach town, though, holds tragic memories for Adelaide. In the flashback prologue, we witness her being separated from her parents as a little girl in 1986, wandering away from the carnival into the “Vision Quest” funhouse, which for some reason has been built facing the beach rather than the boardwalk.

There she encounters her own reflection -- except it’s not a simple refraction in a mirror.

Without giving too much away, it turns out that this twin is not just a figment of her imagination, but a very real figure. It seems she has been living in shadow ever since their childhood encounter, nurturing a growing resentment that has turned into a murderous rage.

There are others who come along with her and act as her companions, an inverted version of the family. They all wear red denim jumpsuits and carry large golden shears.

Nyong’o uses an eerie breathless voice while playing the “other mother,” which at first may tempt you to laugh but quietly burrows under your skin like a seeking insect. Her followers are even less verbal, confined to beastly growls and howls.

“Us” starts out like a standard horror thriller, as the marginal hunted are quickly sliced up, though more pivotal characters escape their tormentors, fight back and eventually become the hunters. Then the story gets bigger and bigger, losing the intimacy of close-bodied assaults and strangled threats. By going meta, it loses the wonderfully uncanny minutiae that made it sing.

It wraps up in a satisfying way, though as I said one that won’t come as much of a shock to horror veterans. Sometimes, though, knowing the blade will sink deep doesn’t make it bite any less.

Video review: "Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie"

When a mainstream movie doesn’t get screened for critics, it’s usually an indication the studio knows it has a dog and its hands, and figures no publicity is better than bad publicity. They’re wrong, of course: My own observation is that films that get dumped into theaters with no fanfare or press disappear even quicker than those that got negative reviews.

But every now and then, a decent movie gets this treatment for mystifying reasons. Lately, many of these have been family- or kid-oriented fare like the wonderful “Paddington” from a few years ago.

“Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie” isn’t quite that good, but it’s an amusing and rather clever kiddie flick that had my two boys, ages 4 and 6, rolling with laughter almost the entire time. And even grumpy old dad chortled not a little.

The clever set-up is that the two protagonists, George and Harold (voices by Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch), are fourth-grade cut-ups and budding cartoonists themselves. They spend most of their time creating comic books and pulling pranks on Mr. Krupp, their anger-absorbed principal. One of their favorite subjects is Captain Underpants, about a super-powered hero who only wears a cape and his undies.

Through a little hypnosis, the boys actually convince Mr. Krupp (Ed Helms) that he is Captain Underpants, leading to much hilarity as their tubby educator galivants about town in his tighty-whities. Of course, he eventually wakes up and wonders where his clothes are. Later, the Captain manages to obtain actual super-powers to go with his delusion.

Nick Kroll provides the voice of Professor Poopypants, a substitute teacher who turns to evil villainy out of consternation for mockery of his name. It all builds up to a dizzy battle with giant robots and such.

The animation has a deliberately simplistic sort of sheen, interspersed with cut scenes consisting of motion comics from the boys’ illustrations.

Based on the novels by Dav Pilkey, “Captain Underpants” didn’t do so well at the box office. (See section above re: no vs. bad publicity.) It’s definitely worth a look on video, though, as it’s chock-full of boy-centric humor and gross-outs.

Maybe if we do get a sequel, it won’t try to fly under the radar.

Bonus features are pretty good, anchored by six making-of featurettes, including one where Hart and Helms pull real-life surprises on fans. There are also deleted scenes, gallery of stills, music videos including one with theme song writer/performer “Weird All” Yankovic, and a “Tightey-Whitey Q&A with the Stars.”

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Review: "Storks"

“Storks” is a better concept than final product. It’s middle-of-the-road animation for kiddies with some humor thrown in for adults that doesn’t really click. I guess we should appreciate the effort, but whether they tried to include us or not, we’re not laughing.

The setup is that storks actually were in the baby delivering business until 18 years ago, when a colossal screw-up left them in the lurch and they had to take on a lost infant themselves, who’s grown up into an annoying teen who screws everything up. The boss stork, Hunter (voice of Kelsey Grammer), came up with the idea of transforming them into Cornerstore.com, an Amazon-like outlet for all kinds of consumer junk delivered door-to-door via free bird.

(Right now somewhere, Jeff Bezos is cursing his army of expensive drones.)

Hunter’s ready to move up the chain and hand the business off to Junior (Andy Samberg), a neurotic yet ambitious young climber. Except Nate (Anton Starkman), a lonely human kid who wants a baby brother to play with, sends a letter off to the storks requesting same. (“Please include ninja skills,” he underlines.) And Tulip (Katie Crown), the storks’ pet orphan, accidentally feeds it into their dormant giant gizmo that turns the letter molecules into the DNA of a new baby, or something. Out spits an adorable tyke with cotton candy-colored hair.

The metaphysics don’t make a lick of sense, but just go with it.

…except I can’t. Leaving aside the stationary-into-infant-humans thing, does this mean people weren’t having sex prior to the storks abandoning their trade? And now they’ve been making babies the old-fashioned way? If that’s the case, I’d think the headlines wouldn’t read “Storks back to making babies” but rather “Evil birds out to ruin your sex life!”

Anyway, Junior and Tulip embark on a trip to return the little girl to her rightful place, which involves journeying across sky, land and sea. (Junior conveniently busts his wing right before, thus removing the “Why not just take the eagles to Mordor?” argument a la the “Lord of the Rings” movies.)

Along the way they encounter a wolf pack that first wants to eat, then adopt the baby for themselves. Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele voice the alpha dogs. The wolves have the curious, but genuinely hilarious, ability to link their bodies together to form a bridge, a boat and more stuff. There’s also a nasty little pigeon toadie (Stephen Kramer Glickman) looking to deep-six Junior’s favored status.

The movie keeps cutting away to Nate’s house, where he manages to pry his workaholic realtor parents (Jennifer Aniston and Ty Burrell) away from their phone headsets long enough to get some overdue bonding in.

Nicholas Stoller, who wrote the screenplay and co-directed with Doug Sweetland, has a fondness for rapid-delivery dialogue that is reminiscent of classic screwball comedies. Except they overuse it to the extent it becomes just irritating. It’s almost like theyassumeverythingbecomesfunnierjustbecauseyousayitfast.

If there’s a point to the story, it’s that kids are great, and you should have kids, and hug them lots and spend time with them. I can think of better ways to accomplish that than taking them to “Storks.”

Anyway, that’s my review. Now here’s one from Joel Lloyd, age almost 6: “Omigaw I love this movie!! I liked the part where the machine made a million babies with rainbow hair. Can we get it on DVD for Christmas??”

Review: "Keanu"

Great hitters can't always field the ball, good choral singers aren't necessarily strong soloists, and fine orators often make poor leaders. And so it is with television comedians trying to make the jump to feature films.

Like Amy Schumer with "Trainwreck," the team behind the Comedy Central hit "Key and Peele" fail to grasp the difference between sketch comedy and film comedy. The former only has to be funny or make sense for a few minutes; the latter has to carry its energy all the way through.

"Keanu" does not. The story of a pair of uptight, upper-middle-class black dudes who spend an evening in the roughest L.A. 'hoods, it's got a handful of laugh-out-loud moments. Most of these revolve around Clarence (Keegan-Michael Key) and Rell (Jordan Peele) screaming like little girls when confronted with some horrific act of violence or the prospect of their imminent demise.

On their show, Pelle and Key can easily jump from character to character -- there's always a commercial to break up the sketches. Here they start out as nerdy "Oreos" (black on the outside, white on the inside) and spend the rest of the movie trying to talk and act like the sort of hardcase gangstas they've only experienced through television and film.

The setup is that Rell has his new kitten, Keanu, stolen after his house is broken into -- apparently a case of mistaken identity, as his next door neighbor (Will Forte), is a drug dealer. The kitty keeps changing hends, from Colombian drug lords to a pair of ghost-like killers known only as "the Allentown boys" (actually Key and Pelle, heavily made up) to Cheddar, a local banger played by Method Man.

The running joke is that all these grim characters instantly fall in love with Keanu, and will do anything to get him back, including kill or be killed.

Rell and Clarence foolishly head over to Cheddar's HQ, the Hot Party Vixens club (check that acronym), where they are immediately called out as suburban wimps. So they adopt the personas of Tectonic and Shark Tank -- after the puffer fish in "Finding Nemo?" -- which means dropping their voices an octave and saying the n-word a whole lot.

One of the funnier sequences is where a bunch of them are waiting in Clarence's minivan, which he says he drives because it's inconspicuous, and they turn on his stereo, which left off on a George Michael song. Clarence, ahem, Shark Tank, manages to convince them Michael is actually cool black music.

Tiffany Haddish plays Hi-C, one of Cheddar's crew who starts to take an unlikely shine to Rell/Tectonic, Nia Long is Clarence's wife and Luis Guzman plays the drug lord.

Co-written by Peele and Alex Rubens and directed by Peter Atencio, "Keanu" is the sort of thing you expect from a bunch of TV guys who think they've got what it takes for the big screen. It's a whole lot of obvious jokes -- want to guess if the cat's most famous namesake turns up, at least aurally? -- and playing off the stars' television personalities.

There are three or four good and funny scenes, about enough for a single half-hour episode of "Key and Peele."