Toy Story 5 review: The franchises best movie in 16 years hilariously tackles AI

Running time: 102 minutes.PG (some thematic elements, rude humor).

In theaters.Long before Chat GPT was a household name, Hollywood had been making AI the villain for decades — from HAL 9000 to Skynet to Agent Smith. Yet the most emotionally involving spin on the terrors of tech in ages arrives not from groundbreaking sci-fi, but the smart, wonderful and tremendously funny fifth “Toy Story” movie.That’s a surprise, since it’s a film that I really hoped would never happen.After middling “4,” which was a giant step down from the heartbreaking third, the world was more than ready for Woody and Buzz to ride off into the sunset. Woody actually did.Well, it’s good that Tom Hanks and Tim Allen got back behind the mic, because the digital age gives Pixar’s playthings a renewed sense of purpose and atypically high stakes.

Usually the gang helps a young person stay in touch with their childhood.This time, they save one in progress.    That’s the formative years of little Bonnie (Scarlett Spears), the girl who inherited the dolls from Andy (who’s now like 40) in the last movie.

She’s eight years old, paralyzed by shyness and totally friendless.Desperate, Bonnie begs her parents to buy her a Lilypad, an interactive touchscreen that’s all the rage at school.  Yes, the baddie that Woody (Hanks), Buzz (Allen) and Jessie (Joan Cusack) must face this time is an alarmingly cute tablet, voiced by Greta Lee.So, rather than humanity’s fears of artificial intelligence taking control of the nuclear arsenal or replacing us with cyborgs, director Andrew Stanton’s “5” taps into a much more immediate concern: Screens rewiring kids’ minds.Much like when action figure Buzz arrived, sigh, 31 years ago, the toys are mortified by the mysterious intruder and her luminescent ilk.

Looking across their neighborhood, all they can see for blocks are glowing blue windows with zombie youths staring into the 10×10 void. The end is nigh, they think.How can ...