No, it is all true, the hype is not an over-exaggeration, this is one of the best films out this summer. As we all know, Pixar have created films that rival the great Walt Disney in both originality and beauty. ‘Toy Story 3’ sees the end to the series that made Pixar’s name back in 1995; no creative expense has been spared in making it the best of the trilogy and one of the best Pixar films to date.

The film opens with an exciting imaginative adventure scene followed by a heart warming montage showing the interaction and love between Andy and his toys. When the dust settles, however, the audience find themselves back in Andy’s room: a lot of time has passed and things are very different. Nothing has escaped the change: Andy (still voiced by a now grown-up John Morris) is grown up and leaving for college; the puppy Buster has his fair share of grey hairs; and Andy’s toys are left half forgotten in his old toy box. Although many of our favourite toys are still in this film, such as Woody, Buzz and Jesse, to name a few, some are also missing. The ones that are still around have not changed: they still want to be played with and long for Andy’s attention. This childlike want is heartbreaking to watch. It is also clear that the toys are slowly becoming jaded as time passes; so begins the start of the message that Pixar is trying to tackle. The film aims to deal with loss of purpose and how we feel when we are looked over or no longer needed.

The solution presented to us and the toys is to try and live with no purpose, no responsibilities, no owners. Andy’s toys find this weight-free existence at Sunnyside Daycare where the toys have no owners and so have no no heartbreak. However, Sunnyside is a lot more sinister than it first appears.. It is here that the story starts to pick up pace with many action sequences, moving speeches and funny one-liners as well as introductions to many new characters, both toys and human.

This final instalment of the ‘Toy Story’ franchise easily has some of the best characters in it. We have the return of old favourites: Rex who is still as clumsy as ever; Ham who is voiced by Pixar good-luck charm John Ratzenberger; the Potato Heads with their alien adoptive children; slinky dog; the cowboy’s horse Bullseye; and of course Woody and Buzz, the film’s favourite duo. However there is also some female talent with Jessie the cow-girl and new comer Barbie. Both girls easily keep up with the male toys in both action and comedy. On top of these characters the audience are introduced to many more at Sunnyside Daycare such as Stretch, Chunk, Dollie and a host of others all voiced by famous Hollywood veterans such as Whoopi Goldberg and Timothy Dalton. The head of this host of new toys is Lots-O’-Huggin’ Bear (Lotso for short) who with the soft voice of Ned Beatty and bright purple fur, seems at first a kind and wise caretaker, but is in fact a ruthless warden who controls Sunnyside with intimidation and fear. He wields this fear with the help of Big Baby, his Lenny like accomplice who is strong, yet follows Lotso with blinding faith. Big Baby is a frightening character that harks back to the terrible creations found in Cid’s room in the first film. However easily the most stand out new character is Michael Keaton’s Ken, the embodiment of the metro-sexual man. With his All American smile, indignation at being called a ‘girl’s toy’ and expansive wardrobe that would make Carrie Fisher jealous, Ken could certainly be an idol for the modern man (a character some might relate to). The fashion montage in his walk in wardrobe is certainly a highlight of the film and makes him an immediate favourite with everyone watching. The great thing about all Pixar characters, and this film is no exception, is that they are not one dimensional. The good guys have flaws and annoying habits while the bad guys have relatable motives that cause them to act as they do. In this way these animated toys have are more realistic than something you might find in a M.Night Shyamalan production.

In typical Pixar fashion it’s not just the characters that have matured and improved since the previous film. The animation is easily the best ever, with beautiful bright colours, made more detailed by the 3D effect (although the jury is still out as to quite how much this improves the cinematic experience, in this reviewer’s opinion). Along with the animation, the emotional balance has been perfected with lots of jokes, both physical slapstick for the kids and witty quips for the adults, as well as lots of poignant moments and realisations. The film shows that a purposeless life is empty and that we never lose our purpose or importance, we simply grow out of old ones and start new ones. However along with the maturation Pixar has not lost its childlike humour with subtle in jokes and homages. Andy’s Mum’s car still has the licence plate A-113, which is subtle dedication to the classroom where many Pixar artists discovered their dream of animation. Many of the action scenes inside Sunnyside come from famous escape films such as ‘The Great Escape’. One of the new toys is Totoro, the mascot of the Japanese film studio Studio Ghibli with whom Pixar are on great terms. They also hint at previous jokes from the older ‘Toy Story’ films, such as ‘the claw’ and riding Buster like a horse, but these jokes have changed with time and are the funnier for it. There are probably many more in-jokes that first time viewers may not notice and, with this in mind, it’s worth going to see the film again and again to discover the plethora of hidden jokes and references. The movie also starts with a fantastic short film called ‘Night and Day’, which plays around wonderfully with the fusion of sound and vision and is easily one of the best short films Pixar has done in a long time.

‘Toy Story 3’ is the perfect end to a magnificent trilogy and will leave every member of the audience feeling warm, a little weepy, but fully satisfied with the ending. The film creates laugher and tears in both children and adults and yet no one is ashamed of this. The only thing to regret is that we did not show our own toys this much affection when we still had them.

Matt Isard

Woody, Buzz, Mr. Potatohead, Rex – these are just a few of the adorable characters that throw most of us right back into childhood and remind us of how magically fun the original two Toy Story films were, before bringing us right back to the present day and wowing us once again. Like their owner, Andy, you’ve probably grown up by now and will have headed for college. But, somehow, hearing ‘You’ve Got A Friend In Me’ playing to the sound of a Tom Hanks-voiced cowboy won’t just make you happy through the memory of being a kid. It will also make you happy right here and right now. Surely that’s not allowed? Surely only children can enjoy Pixar films this much? Toy Story 3 blows such prejudices out of the window, and that’s credit to how stunningly feel-good it is.

The premise is simple: times are changing. As Andy vacates his room, his family of old toys worry that they are headed for the bin. Andy actually intends to store them in the loft but, through an unfortunate sequence of events, they all end up destined for a play school where – as fresh donations – they expect to be cherished by a group of new children. They’re all ecstatic at the prospect, except for Woody. He can’t help but look at the name of his owner written on the bottom of his boot, and realise his and their obligations lie elsewhere. They must head back to where they belong.

When daycare turns out to be far from heaven, the other toys soon come round to a similar way of thinking. Barbie might be happy now she’s met Ken, but for everyone else, not only are the new kids maniacally young, hurling them around like anarchists, but all the toys there are governed by a seemingly benevolent, but in reality totalitarian, strawberry-smelling pink bear. He tweaks Buzz’s configurations so he becomes a straight-faced prison patrol guard, and when accompanied with the monkey on watch as eyes in the sky and robots encasing the perimeter with flashlights, our favourite toys seem destined to a life in confinement. Only through a perfectly apt and crazy adventure do they flee and successfully escape, heading back, naturally, to Andy’s bedroom where he once again can decide where he wishes their services to lie.

Like all Pixar films, it’s bright and beautifully colourful but this film is not solely a visual experience. Toy Story 3 also brings the biggest and most genuine of smiles to the audience’s faces for the length of its duration. From Woody being hurled into a play-time session in which the other toys explain they ‘do a lot of improv,’ to Buzz being programmed into Spanish mode in his post-police patrol phase, making him devilishly romantic as he dances around to woo cowgirl Jessie, it’s all wonderfully, phenomenally joyful stuff. There’s no other way of putting it.

That improv group joked about heading for Cannes. Perhaps that was a little ambitious, but I’m pretty sure they’d have been as pleasantly surprised as we’ve been to see their dreams come true when Toy Story 3 deservedly premiered at Edinburgh last month. With Pixar’s newest masterpiece, they have approached that holy grail of cinema: a perfect trilogy. Just keep it as Toy Story 3, full stop. Not Toy Story 3 3D.

Jacob Williamson

From Elizabeth Taylor’s screeching Kate to Cole Porter’s campy musical number ‘I Hate Men’ to Heath Ledger’s paintballing Petruchio, The Taming of the Shrew often falls victim to the impetus to produce a new, never-before-seen take on Shakespeare’s classic comedy. But the Thelma Holt/OUDS Summer Tour production of The Taming of the Shrew has successfully resisted the pitfalls of anachronistic, postmodern interpretation and gives us a refreshingly faithful rendition of Katherine’s cursedness, Bianca’s sweetness, Lucentio’s lovelorness, and Petruchio’s capriciousness.

Let me be direct: director Alice Hamilton’s production is good. Very good. Her ensemble betrays no weak links and each of the players handled their lines with the grace and deftness that this battle of wills and wits requires. They also prove to be quite adept singers, with the choral interludes between scenes complementing the action and the tone of the piece. Ed Peace’s Katherine is not merely a perversely ‘cursed wench’; she gives bonny Kate the psychological depth she deserves, seeking her father’s love through negative attention with her hair-pulling antics. Petruchio, played by Jacob Taee, evokes in his audience the same love and play with language that the character exhibits. Most refreshing, however, is the production’s the treatment of Katherine’s speech in the final scene. It inevitably sounds a bit misogynistic to our postmodern, post-feminist ears; I braced myself for Pearce to play against the lines and somehow try to twist the text into the discourse of a prenatal suffragette. But the lines themselves won out and in all their anachronistic glory proved a testament to the strength of the relationship between Petruchio and Katherine that the text works so hard to engineer.

The lone shortcoming of this Taming? The sporadic appearance of modern clothes that jarred, probably intentionally, against the otherwise period dress. The producer kindly explained to me their role in gesturing towards the meta-theatricality of the text with the all but forgettable pre-beat in Shakespeare’s original setting up the familiar play-within-a-play trope. While I appreciate the sentiment, having Tranio turn up in a denim jacket and 80’s sunglasses, or Petruchio appearing in less than shocking wedding apparel (just a rather nice pair of red trousers and argyle vest), did not read as gesturing to anything other than perhaps a budget shortcoming. Combined with a confusing Brechtian pre-beat which features the actors wandering around staging mumbling their lines, this production only struggled when it strayed from its greatest strengths: its commitment to the play as it was originally staged in all its 16th century glory. But aside from these minor distractions, this Taming of the Shrew succeeds where most versions fail and delivers a truly enjoyable experience in the lovely Magdalen College Gardens. It can only garner the response of Petruchio himself after his tamed Kate’s final speech: ‘Is not this well?’

The show will be playing in Magdalen College Gardens July 21 through July 24 before commencing its tour of Stratford, London and Japan. Ticket details can be found on the website: www.tamingoftheshrew2010.co.uk.