Lightyear (NC16)

105 minutes, opens on June 16

4 stars

The story: In this space adventure spin-off of the Toy Story films (1995 to 2019), space ranger Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Chris Evans) and his teammates are marooned on a planet filled with dangerous creatures. Buzz tries to find a way back home with the help of fellow ranger Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba), but alien monster Zurg (James Brolin) appears - along with his powerful robot army.

Within the Toy Story universe, this is the movie that inspired the production of the Buzz Lightyear action figure that found its way into the collection of the boy Andy.

Three reasons to watch this addition to the Toy Story canon:

1. The playful visual style

While the art is not as richly detailed as, say, Up (2009) or even more recent films such as Turning Red (2022), director Angus MacLane finds his own intriguing visual language.

It is a trait found in his first feature, Finding Dory (2016), which he co-directed with Pixar stalwart Andrew Stanton - be it the colours and round shapes of the ships, the outlines of the villainous Zurg army or the bulbous buttons on Buzz's spacesuit that recall the character from the Toy Story series.

2. It stays in touch with the Toy Story spirit while moving the story forward

Toy Story (1995), the first movie released by Pixar, took a meticulous approach to storytelling - a tradition that continues with the new film. The approach covers the spectrum of adult emotions - insecurity, regret and ambition - that bubble beneath a space adventure filled with close shaves and hurtling ships.

That this is a space movie allows the film-makers the freedom to quote other space movies, while letting Buzz and gang take liberties with the laws of physics - something the makers of Toy Story could not do.

3. It asks: What if a science-fiction hero went through therapy?

In recent Pixar movies, a Chinese-Canadian girl (Turning Red), a jazz musician (Soul, 2020) and a small child (Inside Out, 2015) discover that mental health is everything; and that this can be accomplished by listening to the small voice within.

It is a storytelling mode that Pixar has made its own. In this movie, it is a square-jawed hero out of a fantasy genre - think Captain James Kirk from Star Trek or Han Solo from Star Wars - who undergoes Pixartherapy.

Evans' Buzz even gets a therapy animal, the adorable robot cat Sox (voiced by Pixar veteran Peter Sohn, director of The Good Dinosaur, 2015). Buzz and Sox make a fun Luke Skywalker-R2-D2 team, but Sox is better as he is also a highly empathetic life coach.