There are some striking designs and a few hat-tips to 2001: A Space Odyssey. But it all feels a bit perfunctory, like a successful launch that has no destination among the stars or anywhere else.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 16, 2022

Pixar is encouraging us to dream about a reality in which we could’ve received an Alisha action figure for our birthdays.

| Jun 27, 2022

The Chris Evans film has little soul, spark and moving moments.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 24, 2022

To infinity and beyond? Hardly, but Lightyear does achieve liftoff, and that in and of itself ain’t too bad.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 24, 2022

A fairly emotional story about aging and mortality.

| Jun 21, 2022

For a film which shoots for the stars, this is disappointingly pedestrian stuff.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 20, 2022

This may be mid-level Pixar, but that's still respectable.

| Jun 20, 2022

It’s fun, it’s charming and it’ll hit you right in the feels without being overwhelming.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 18, 2022

A relatively minor Pixar effort starring Buzz from Toy Story nevertheless succeeds as escapist summer entertainment for the family.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 18, 2022

Lightyear is nearly the Pixar nadir that is Cars 2, just with a spiffier paint job.

| Jun 17, 2022

I’m most confused by the fact that Lightyear is billed as a movie from the fictional universe of another movie, even though what is actually playing out on-screen is formulaic to the point of dullness.

| Jun 17, 2022

This should have been a clever short film about the character, but instead it’s stretched out to feature length. And it’s barely even a character.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 17, 2022

Family audiences with no grand expectations that their Saturday afternoon matinee viewing constitute great art will have a fine time watching Buzz and his pals zip from infinity to beyond and back.

| Jun 17, 2022

More a lark than a new Pixar landmark, this toon hits the sweet spot as the story of astronaut Buzz Lightyear before he became a toy. Chris Evans voices the Buzz bluster, but it's breakthrough star Sox the cat who steals scenes to infinity and beyond.

| Jun 17, 2022

Once you accept that this movie has almost nothing to do with “Toy Story” and its three sequels, you’re in for an entertaining, if lackluster, Pixar adventure that hews much closer to “Star Trek” than “Wall-E.”

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 17, 2022

Pixar isn’t trying to mint a new classic here, nor to win another Oscar, so viewers stand a solid chance of getting through the movie without crying. It’s nice to know that Team Pixar can still recognize the importance of fun.

| Jun 17, 2022

As always with Pixar, the movie is filled with endearing characters and witty and telling details, brilliantly designed settings, sublime silliness, exciting action scenes and yes, you will cry. It is easy to understand why this was Andy’s favorite movie.

| Original Score: B+ | Jun 17, 2022

If you're looking for a continuation of the "Toy Story" movies, you may be disappointed by "Lightyear," but if you're up for something different, you're in luck.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 16, 2022

A typical product of the Disney-Pixar-Marvel-Star Wars complex, and far from the worst of its kind. But there's no question its makers are more concerned with spinning their wheels than with taking a leap into the void.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 16, 2022

All in all, it’s one of the best sci-fi movies — animated or live-action — in recent memory.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 16, 2022