Toy Story 5 (2026)

Running on Fumes - Toy Story 5 review by griggs

I had a theory going into this one. Star Trek fans have long joked that the odd-numbered films in their franchise are duds and the even-numbered ones are the good ones. I'd flipped that for Toy Story — call it the Bizarro Star Trek theory, since it runs backwards — and it had held up nicely for three decades. Toy Story 5 torches it completely, which is annoying mainly because I liked having a theory.

The jokes are there. The laughs aren't, which is the more worrying problem for a comedy. I caught myself replaying lines in my head just to check I hadn't missed something. Most of the runtime feels like it's idling in neutral, going through the motions without quite going anywhere.

To be fair, the last fifteen minutes pull it together properly, and there's a genuine lump-in-throat moment buried in there. It just can't make up for the hour beforehand. You can feel John Lasseter isn't involved this time round, in a way that's hard to put your finger on but easy to notice.

A toy story running on fumes. Worth a watch, just don't expect much horsepower.