Five out of Five stars
Running time: 103 mins

Worthy threequel to the wonderful Toy Story franchise with gorgeous animation, terrific vocal performances and a brilliantly written script that's consistently both laugh-out-loud funny and powerfully emotional.

What's it all about?
Directed by Lee Unkrich, Toy Story 3 opens with Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen) and the rest of Andy's toys – the Potato Heads (Don Rickles and Estelle Harris), dinosaur Rex (Wallace Shawn), piggy bank Hamm (John Ratzenberger), cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack) and Slinky Dog (Blake Clarke) – resigning themselves to being put up in the attic as Andy (John Morris) prepares to go off to college. However, they accidentally get sent to the Sunnyside Day Care centre instead where Sunnyside leader Lotso-Huggin Bear (Ned Beatty) consigns them to the hellish Caterpillar Room, full of destructive, hyper-active toddlers.

Realising that they won't survive in the Caterpillar Room, the toys plot an elaborate escape, which isn't easy, as Lotso locks them up at night and runs the centre like a prison, complete with a scary cymbal-clashing monkey as lookout. Meanwhile, Woody meets some new toys when he ends up being taken home by a young girl (Emily Hahn as Bonnie) and Barbie (Jodi Benson) thinks her dreams have come true when she meets Sunnyside's resident hunk, Ken (Michael Keaton).

The Good
The vocal performances for these much-loved characters are as wonderful as ever, though there are some terrific new additions this time round, most notably Ned Beatty as Lotso, Timothy Dalton as actorly hedgehog Mister Pricklepants, Michael Keaton as Ken, Kristen Schaal as Trixie the Triceratops and Emily Hahn, who is flat-out adorable as Bonnie. Similarly, the animation is also as gorgeous as ever (especially in the inventive fantasy Wild West playing sequence that opens the film) and the 3D effects are extremely impressive, with the film largely steering clear of gimmicks in favour of fleshed-out 3D environments.

The script is excellent, developing several powerfully emotional themes, such as the toys' sadness at Andy not wanting to play with them anymore or various subtle observations about the lifespan and purpose of a toy.

The Great
Needless to say, the script is packed full of delightful gags and devastatingly emotional moments – make no mistake, tears will be shed by adults and children alike, so bring tissues.

Worth seeing?
Those Pixar geniuses have done it again. Toy Story 3 is one of the best films of the year and is quite simply unmissable.