Toys

Image credit: theposterdb.com

There’s something to be said for those oddball films of the ‘90s that looked like nothing on earth, in which people acted in a very aloof and bizarre way contrary to reality, and were filled with really intriguing messages and ideas about the social state of the world and attempted to use the uncanny to preach them. Here, Thursday nights are movie nights where one of my best friends and I alternate between hosting and we broaden our cinematic horizons. This week it was my girl’s choice of cinematic delights and she went with a film that she’s saved from our old Blockbuster days: Toys.

The film tells the story of an isolated toy factory, that is really a world in itself, who’s owner is on the verge of death. Unwilling to bequeath the factory to his son Leslie (Robin Williams) who is still too fanciful for such responsibility or his daughter Alsatia (Joan Cusak) who is… not right for the role either, he temporarily hands it over to his brother The General (Michael Gambon). Very quickly after his death, Leslie and The General begin to have conflicting views about keeping the joyful spirit of the factory alive, as The General sets his sights on fixing the country’s military by designing a range of deadly war toys.

Film critic Roger Ebert was of the opinion that Toys was visually one of the most delightful film’s he’d ever seen, but narratively struggled with the amount of social commentary and ethical conflicts it harbours. I absolutely agree with this.

Visually, the film is wonderful with all costumes and incredible set pieces all designed and constructed by hand. There is not a computer graphic trick in sight, aside from the MTV musical video gag. The oddness and scale of the sets are reminiscent of Beetlejuice or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, with enormous doll heads and elephants dispensing various toy parts to the assembly lines, huge architectural oddities sitting in the rolling green fields of nowhere, and a beautiful model New York that serves as the battleground for the film’s climactic third act.

Narratively, there is a lot happening in this movie. So much so that the messages get intermingled, lose steam, and end up leaving the audience with a bit of a deflated feeling as none of the moral messages are ever really tied up. The film is a social commentary on a number of things, expressing the opinion that these points of society are becoming warped, tainted, and corrupted. We’ve got conflicting depictions of management-worker relationships, decaying compassion in familial ties, and an exploitation of children and childlike naivete. A pretty intense good toy vs bad toy land battle very nicely depicts the brutality of war and paints a very disturbing picture of The General’s plans to save the country’s declining military efficiency by tricking children into becoming soldiers by giving them literal toy weapons of mass destruction.

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Toys is not a bad movie. It’s merely a confused and ambitious movie. A bright Candyland feast for the eyes that deals zero emotional nourishment, just an empty feeling at the end. Like biting into a bar of amazing-smelling soap and then just tasting…well soap. The performances are all delightfully weird and whacky, and there is a lot to be said for what the movie is trying to do. It just doesn’t quite get there.

Director: Barry Levinson, 1992

Cast: Robin Williams, Joan Cusack, Michael Gambo, Robin Wright, LL Cool J, Arthur Malet, Jack Warden, Jamie Foxx, Debi Mazar & Donald O’Conner.