Review: 'Lightyear,' taking inspiration from 'Toy Story,' gives us a hero any kid would want to play with

I’ve got no problem with Pixar Animation Studios digging through its intellectual property, as long as the filmmakers there can create something as well-constructed and outright fun as “Lightyear.”

The title cards at the beginning of the movie set up the premise perfectly: In 1995, the cards say, a boy named Andy got a toy for his birthday that was based on his favorite movie. “This is that movie,” the last card says.

No, the movie is not the further adventures of the plastic toy that got over his ego and learned how to be a good toy. Instead, director Angus MacLane (a 25-year Pixar veteran) and the team are highlighting the character on which that toy was based — and, being “real” rather than a toy, is rather more complex.

Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Chris Evans) is one of the best pilots in the Space Ranger corps. He knows it, too, which prompts his patrol partner and best friend, Alisha Hawthorne (voiced by Uzo Aruba), to note that Buzz needs to learn not to take on the galaxy all by himself.

The Rangers’ ship lands on a planet they soon learn is quite hostile — and in trying to lift off, Buzz takes the controls, but can’t get the ship into orbit. Instead, the crew has dodge the carnivorous vines to create a colony on the planet, until they can concoct an energy source to get the ship off the planet and back on course. 

Buzz volunteers to be the test pilot for the new “crystalic fusion” (one of the many “Toy Story” references embedded in the script, by Jason Headley and MacLane), accompanied by a robot cat named Sox (voiced by “The Good Dinosaur” director Peter Soho). When Buzz and Sox take off on a four-minute mission, they learn that four years have passed on the planet. Buzz is determined to try again and again, as decades pass by.

Finally, Buzz and Sox find the human colony fending off not only the vines but a new enemy: A ship hovering overhead, led by a mysterious character called Zurg. Buzz must rely on a small squad of misfits — including Izzy Hawthorne (voiced by Keke Palmer), Alisha’s grand-daughter — to defeat Zurg.

MacLane and crew have devised exactly the kind of movie a kid like Andy would have loved when he was a kid. Kids will eat this up, but I think the adults who were kids back in 1995 or earlier — and grew up on the science-fiction themes this movie understands like a second language — will enjoy it even more. 

“Lightyear” is loaded with exciting moments and charming characters — like Buzz’s new crewmates, nervous Mo (voiced by Taika Waititi) and gruff Darby (voiced by Dale Soules from “Orange Is the New Black”), and especially the scene-stealing Sox. Best of all, the movie gives us a worthy Buzz Lightyear, someone who’s both heroic and human, and the sort of character a kid would want to take on imaginary adventures to infinity and beyond.

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‘Lightyear’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, June 17, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for action/peril. Running time: 100 minutes.