Film Preview: Toy Story 4 (2019)

Page Revisions:

(November 18, 2018) Original
(March 24, 2019) New Trailer (#2) / New Posters (#5-#8)
(May 26, 2019) New Trailer (#3) / New Posters (#9-#18)
(June 16, 2019) New Posters (#19-#22)

Release Date:

June 21, 2019

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “When a new toy called “Forky” joins Woody and the gang, a road trip alongside old and new friends reveals how big the world can be for a toy.”

Poster Rating: C+ (5) / C / C / B- / B- / C / C / C+ / C (6) / C+ / B- / C / C

SEE ALL POSTERS BELOW
Review: (#1-#5) These character posters have a certain dusty charm to them, but they are incredibly light in content and originality.

(#6) The giant logo is perhaps a giveaway to the idea that Woody is saying goodbye to the series by tipping his hat and physically looking as if he’s walking towards the sunset. The fairground in the background establishes setting, but the whole of the design is unexciting. (#7) Everyone you’re familiar with and a few you aren’t make this design just about as exciting as the predecessor, but also quite a bit more familiar. (#8) A far more interesting design that puts the characters in an antique store, which explains a few of the new toys in the design. Overall, it feels a bit more creepy, but that’s better than the cheaply cloying appearance of the other designs.

(#9) Sporky almost looks excited to be leaping away from the rest of the crew, who don’t quite look well staged to go after him. (#10) Everyone against an out-of-focus background. It doesn’t work. (#11) If these are your favorite characters, then this could excite you, but the design won’t. (#12) Into the sunset? Is this design suggesting the end of these characters? I doubt that. (#13-#18) This series of character posters has nothing much going for it with uninspired backgrounds and foregrounds.

(#19) When poster designs look like they were just thrown together without thought or concern, you get something like this with plenty of detail, but not a lot of depth. (#20) A nicely-colored and laid out design that leaves far too much blank space, though it’s among the best IMAX designs I’ve seen. (#21) Not terribly far removed from prior efforts and certainly no more interesting. (#22) It’s a familiar character design with 3D glasses that don’t embellish or add much to anything other than to advertise something that’s unimportant.

Trailer Rating: C / B+ / A-

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Review: (#1) Having just recently watched Hereditary, the choice of “Both Sides Now” is a bit disturbing. That creepiness aside, the trailer itself doesn’t reveal much of importance, though it does remind us who’s in this film and that might be enough to stoke minor amounts of interest.

(#2) While the second and third films sold themselves on the big screen, this trailer is surprisingly uninteresting. There are interesting moments, but the whole of it feels like a brain-dump explanation of plot rather than an honest attempt at selling audiences on the film who weren’t already sold on it.

(#3) As the details of the film emerge, the anticipation for the film should rise. There’s plenty of adventure here to engage fans of the series and a hilarious sequence at the end that might capture more.