a review of 玩具总动员4

I loved Toy Story part one up to and including three. Pixar managed to keep the enchantment alive in those films. But part four just didn't work for me. It felt like a superfluous repetition of what has been seen before. I thought the newly introduced characters were too contrived, the action scenes too childish and hysterical, and I found the ending unsatisfying. I'm also not fond of Pixar showing off the ever-increasing realism of their Renderman 3D renderer. The sets and props have become too realistic and oversaturated with detail. There's too much visual contrast between the overly realistic decors and the stylized toy character designs, resulting in a lack of the bright, dynamic, cartoony appeal that was still present in the early Pixar feature films, such as Monsters Inc.. In short: the soul of the exciting early Pixar years seems to have been replaced by corporate routine.