Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

terarex This movie is fascinating, so creative. I don't want to review it or summarize it per se - it's excellent - but I wanted to point out how the conflict of the story is the militarization of "toys" to create remote controlled weapons. The toys that get made, or more correctly, intelligent drones predict in perhaps a satirical way on what has actually happened with modern warfare. Even how it appears like a "video game" in certain scenes.It's also very funny in what I call "smart-stupid" whereas the writing appears kind of dumb, but is actually very funny and well written in a dry way. I loved it as a kid for the war robots as I called them, I appreciate it more now.P.S. Who has sustained a similar level of fame for so long as LL Cool J???

hellraiser7 Toys have always carried a certain power on us as children. It's hard to say what it is, from the amount of fun these products introduced and how much feeling we put into them the more we played. Yeah, I remember having a ball playing with "Transformers" and "He-Man". All the same, toys have bought out the best positive qualities in us, but most importantly life itself.I'm probably going to be in the minority on this but I think this is an under the radar gem. This film in a way is sort of a Roald Dahl tale but for adults. Like in that author's stories he puts fairy tales into the modern world.The visuals and production value of the film are just amazing, because their all practical and were done on a high budget which I'll say is money that was well spent. They really did a great job at making the world in the film seem one step in the realm of fantasy but also one step in our contemporary reality. There are so many moments of visual joy, I don't want to give too many of them away. Two of my favorites set pieces of visual are one with a house that acts like a pop up book from the way it opens. But my favorite in the scene with the walls closing in where its pretty much a 3D crossword puzzle, where there are different sections in different configurations coming out and coming together.The music score from one of my favorite composers Hans Zimer is great and I personal thing this film has one of the best and most underrated scores/soundtracks. Two of my favorite music tracks in the one in the final conflict and the other was when Leland Zemo gives a speech about his master plan as there were fireworks blazing.But most importantly what powers the film is the story and characters, which I feel is imaginative and has a lot of heart. Even like the humor, though I wouldn't say it's always ha ha funny, after all this film is more of a fantasy, thriller, drama which I'll admit is a great combination and shows that you can do more with the fantasy genre.Supporting characters are really great, Joan Cusack as Alsatin Zevo is great, her character reminds me a little of Mabel from the TV show "Gravity Falls" like Mabel she is bright cheerful but really odd. And we of course near the end discover why she a bit out of sorts.Robin Wright is solid as Gwen Tyler. She's kind of the straight one but she has a bit of a quarky humorous side to her that comes out a bit more as she interacts with Leslie more. I really like the chemistry between both the characters, it really feels like both were kinda made for one another. Though the only bad thing is both don't have enough scenes together, which to me is the only weak point of the film.And of course the main protagonist, Robin Williams one of my favorite comedians and actors is great in this film which is part of why this is one of my favorite films with him and I really like his character Leslie Zevo. His character is pretty much a man child, he's a lot of fun, has a great odd kinda quarky sense of humor. I really love how inventive the the gags and toys he creates like a smoking jacket or magnetic deviled egg. If the character has a weakness is simply just that he's a man child which makes him unsure of himself and unable to take complete responsibility, and he's aware of this. This is part of what makes us want him to win, we know that he is the rightful owner of Zevo toys but he has to prove himself worthy first, he's got to learn to step up and take it. The antagonist Lt. General Leland Zevo played well by Michael Gambon. Yeah I've seen the Harry Potter films though I remember him best in a "Doctor Who" Christmas special. Anyway Leland is a solid and even scary villain, he's pretty much a power mad general. One scene which really justifies how far off the reservation he's gone is when Leland is playing some tank video game and he is constantly shooting the UN trucks and just madly enjoying himself. That scene was great because it showed two things; one a simplistic suttle way of showing the depth of an antagonist damaged psyche, which I thing is great because it presents how dangerous the antagonist is. Two, showing the video games don't cause people to do acts of violence, the perpetrators that played the games were crazy to begin with.Leland's plot I'll admit is frighteningly plausible and really scary if you think about it. With the drone technology we have now, whose to say some higher up won't think of pulling strings to make it happen, tricking kids into thinning their playing a video game when their actually destroying real cars and people with these drones. It's an evil plan because not just is it turning kids into killers but it's murdering their innocence. This all the more makes you want the protagonists to win, this evil plan that shouldn't succeed but it's also a fight for the right of innocence to live.This film I think has a great message on the importance of letting the positive beautiful things in life like love, laughter, joy prevail over the negative aspects greed, power, and war.Like any toy to play with this film is a joy to play with.Rating: 4 stars

Jeff Hoy This movie will be many different things to many different people.As a kid I found Toys traumatic. It starts with creepy clowns, a minor-keyed "happy workers" song, and goes downhill from there. I had always considered it a welcome death knell for 80's-style dark fantasy films.But twenty-two years later, it has aged very well. The visuals and music are excellent. The atmosphere is pervasive. The messages are as relevant as ever. The difficulty for the movie, and the cause for such mixed reviews, is that the film tries to combine at least eight themes into one:1. A surreal fantasy about innocence and childhood2. A reality about death and family expectations3. A social commentary about war and industry4. An upbeat comedy, and Robin Williams does have some great moments5. A sarcastic dark comedy, which also has some great moments6. An exposition of toys, Willy Wonka-style7. Romance8. ViolenceSince all of these are adult themes, naming the movie "Toys" could be reason enough to pan it. But if you can get past the shifting themes and the 42-minute plot introduction, there are amazingly bright spots to be found. For me it was watching Robin Williams enjoy a world he helped create, sort of akin to Michael Jackson at Neverland, with all its dire fascination.

Maz Murdoch (asda-man) I decided to watch "Toys" as it was missing from my childhood, I remember seeing the trailer on the "Mrs. Doubtfire" video (that was never out!) And I thought it looked good. So it was on TV and I recorded and thought it was definitely something different and which definitely does not LACK imagination! The visuals are the most impressive things in "Toys", it's as if life is inside a Dhali painting. Everything is surreal and tongue-in-cheek which is quite refreshing to see through the midst of countless films that all start to look the same. Films like this don't come around very often and maybe some of you think this is a good thing? But it's important that you open your mind when watching this and just enjoy the imaginative images that flourish before you on the screen.The visuals and directing style reminded me of a Tim Burton film, such as "Big Fish", it was very colourful with Burton-esque ideas and I really liked that. Although the film did sort of fall apart during the evil toys vs not evil toys due to the lack of direction and not focusing on the editing.Hans Zimmer's score was also very impressive. It lifted the child-like atmosphere. Robin Williams was mis-used however, he did have some very funny lines (the Mother Teresa bit is worth watching for those few seconds) but his talents weren't used to the extent.Weird and wonderful, "Toys" is unlike anything I've ever seen, and i also think that underneath this child-like exterior is quite a serious metaphor. The story-line is simple, the directing is driven and the visuals are stunning. "Toys" is definitely worth a watch if you have at least some imagination.