Toys: Movie Review

**Contains some movie spoilers***

Today I am reviewing a more obscure movie that I would be extremely surprised if anyone in this school has ever seen. I basically found it by accident. This movie is called Toys, and strangely enough it actually has very little to do with toys. Not to say that it doesn’t involve toys at all, it’s just that it’s not the main focus of the movie.

To those who haven’t seen the movie, here is a short run-through of the plot: The owner of a toy factory dies and leaves the factory to his brother, a general who wants to militarize the toys and utilizes an Ender’s Game like plot to get kids to work for the military unwittingly (I assume this, of course; it is never explicitly said in the movie that the kids do not know what they are involved in). The old toy factory owner’s son (played by Robin National Treasure Williams) and his sister (played by Joan Also Pretty Cool Cusack) try to stop him. Honestly, I would be more concerned about the financial future of the company considering the type of toys that are shown to us. They all wind up and look like 50s cartoon characters. The son’s name is Leslie although I spent half the movie thinking that that was the sister’s name…my brothers strenuously proved me wrong. Robin Williams just acts like Robin Williams for the whole movie, and honestly, it works. They should have just done that with every movie he was in. Joan Cusack’s character, who I cannot remember the name of, is definitely the strangest character in the movie, and that is saying something. Spoiler Alert! She ends up being a robot at the end of the movie, so it kind of makes sense, but we still hear lines like, “Do you have applesauce sandwiches, Joe?” And “Okay, I’ll have another mayonnaise sandwich, Joe.” Most of the weird stuff with her involves sandwiches. And I stand by that she is the weirdest even in a movie where Robin Williams puts a napkin on his hand and pretends that it’s Mother Teresa. Another character in the movie is the general’s son, an espionage specialist who will completely disappear from sight at random parts of the movie. He is originally on the General’s side, but after discovering that he basically killed his mother, he switches sides to join Leslie. While he is far from the funniest character in the movie, he still has some funny moments, such as when he tells Joan Cusack, “I’m a military man. I want a military meal. I want my string beans to be quarantined. I want a fortress around my mashed potatoes so the meat loaf doesn’t invade my mashed potatoes and cause mixing on my plate.” My entire family (including me) eats this way.

Overall, I thought the movie was pretty funny and had a lot of heart. I said it before, and I’ll say it again, Robin Williams was great in this and gave it his all. I would recommend this movie, especially considering most of you most likely have not seen it. Although, I would warn that it is an extremely strange movie. It’s a little long and probably has some unnecessary scenes, but it is still enjoyable.