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Toy Story 5 review: Jessie takes the lead in a lovingly made but underwhelming return for Pixar's beloved franchise

There’s plenty of wonderful stuff here – but it can feel a bit overstuffed and the commentary is heavy-handed.

A green frog tablet is on a bed while Jessie the cowgirl toy and her toy horse Bullseye, look at her angrily.

Published: Tuesday, 16 June 2026 at 5:00 pm

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A star rating of 3 out of 5.

“Toys are for play but tech is for everything,” sighs Woody as Pixar’s popular franchise finally catches up with the reality of being a modern kid. Having been outgrown by their first child Andy and survived a stint in a dangerous daycare setting and a perilous road trip, the Toy Story gang face their stiffest challenge yet: screen time.

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When we last saw cowboy Woody (voiced, as ever, by Tom Hanks) it felt like the end of the road, as he left his fellow toys behind for an alfresco life with love interest Bo Peep (Annie Potts), passing his sheriff’s badge over to his fellow rootin’ tootin’ ragdoll, Jessie (Joan Cusack). We return to find Jessie in charge of the bedroom of a now eight-year-old Bonnie (Scarlett Spears), with Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) her smitten deputy.

Bonnie’s lack of friends is causing her parents concern; to help her make connections they reluctantly get her a tablet. Enter Lilypad (voiced by Greta Lee), who sucks up all of Bonnie’s attention, distracting her from her other interests and alienating her further. Jessie’s efforts to assist Bonnie end up with the cowgirl being mistakenly returned to an old address. There, Jessie encounters discarded toys aplenty, as well as a potential friend for Bonnie, Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris).

If Toy Story 4 felt like a welcome return for the gang (and might have made a fitting finale if it hadn’t made more than a billion dollars at the box office), then it feels like the well is starting to run dry in this fifth instalment.

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Helmed by Pixar stalwart Andrew Stanton (who co-wrote the first two and fourth Toy Story movies, and directed WALL-E, Finding Nemo and Finding Dory) and co-written and directed by Kenna Harris, Toy Story 5 is still beautifully animated and largely well executed.

Woody’s own role is understandably diminished and, although the film goes heavier on Buzz, that’s mainly due to a slightly random subplot involving a load of high-tech Buzz Lightyear toys, who end up on a single-minded quest for Star Command after being shipwrecked.

Instead, Jessie comes to the fore and, while Cusack is as terrific as ever, her character’s emotional journey is overfamiliar, as Jessie looks out for Bonnie and reflects on her separation from original owner, Emily. However, Bonnie is a sweet and sympathetic kid; adorably designed and animated, she’s a world away from the franchise’s early, dramatically less lifelike attempts at humans.

The threat of devices and what this means for children’s imaginations and real-world interactions is a pertinent subject, and one that feels essential for this play-based franchise to explore. And the approach is well-intentioned, as the film pleads the case for make-believe play and romanticises it in rose-tinted sequences.

Yet some of this commentary is heavy-handed and you do wonder how such moralising will be viewed by the millions who end up watching it on their own phones and tablets, while it’s hard to square with the fact that Lilypads are being sold as tie-in merch. Though the film’s concerns are undoubtedly valid, they sometimes come across as patronising – and, yes, hypocritical – handwringing, even if the writers eventually settle on a more balanced position.

Acknowledging the fact that the franchise originates from a very different time, Woody himself is derided as an "old man" throughout; at one point he cringingly attempts to rock a poncho, while the removal of his hat reveals he is balding.

There’s plenty of wonderful stuff here: the discarded devices who describe themselves as "the double A team" are a lot of fun – led by Conan O’Brien’s hilarious toilet trainer, Smarty Pants.

But the film is overstuffed with characters. In some ways, this gives us an embarrassment of riches (there’s clearly no shortage of ideas in that sense), but very few get time to shine, whether it’s old favourites or newer creations (Ernie Hudson’s reinvigorated Combat Carl, for example, is great but underemployed).

Any franchise that finds itself five films down the line is bound to be running slightly low on fuel. However, such is the love and attention to detail that evidently goes into making the Toy Story films that even a slightly underwhelming effort is still a cut above most of the animated field.

Toy Story 5 is released in UK cinemas on Friday 19 June.

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Authors

Emma Simmonds

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