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> Film Code Podcast Full Review

"Everyone's had a life down here. Everyone, except you."

The biggest issue for Lightyear is its a film that supposedly came out in 1995 in Andy's world, but it can't shake the fact that it is very much a film written in 2022. And with 2022 in mind, and it's not written well. Even in 1995, this would have been a direct-to-video release.

The idea that Disney put Soul and Turning Red onto Disney+ but pushed this into theaters is among some of their most baffling decisions that they've made in the last three years.

Still there are good things about Lightyear. Sox is incredible, funny, deliriously charming, and the star of the film. The animation is great, but you already knew that. And the voice acting, sans Taika Wattiti, is impressive. But that's where it ends.

The plot is inexplicably vague, the final reveal is a mumbled mess of ideas, and the biggest sin is it lacks the Pixar magic that most, if not all, of their films tend to have. Some resonant theme or story that relates to the kid in all of us. This just felt like the most obvious cash grab in the studios history, and we all see it.

Maybe there was a Buzz Lightyear film that Andy fell in love with in '95, but there's no way it was this one, unless Andy's just the dumbest kid alive.