Toys

I know several people who think this movie is horrible. I saw a contestant on "Jeopardy" who professed himself to be a movie expert who said that this movie was the worst of all time. I think that "Toys" is a masterpiece of surreal cinema, and I rank it among the greatest 100 movies ever made (My list, of course). The cast is amazing, and LL Cool J is great..I love people who don't like their food to touch! What are the detractors thinking? Maybe they are the morons! Toys RULES, especially the opening scene...I think that this movie's detractors need to view this movie again with open eyes, and see the amazing vision that this movie imparts. It is pure genius.

*** and a half/****

Toys comes very close to being perfect. First, it is the closest I have seen a director come to creating a Kubrick style of filmaking. However, the ending for this movie is terrible.

Toys is about a man named Leslie Zevo whose father's toy company is taken over by his uncle, General Leland Zevo. The General tries to change the toy line from wind-up toys and dolls to military equipment and is trying to create a toy army operated by little children on remote the control. The plot sounds far fetched but it works.

The beginning of this movie if flawless. The entire production design was definately Oscar worthy. Barry Levinson manages to create this incredible world. I actually did feel like I as watching a Stanley Kubrick film because of the camera and design. There's one chilling scene were Robin Williams is discussing some of the novelty items the company will produce and as he does it the walls of the room he is in slowly close in because the General needs more space to build his war toys. Out of all the films I've seen in the 90's this scene would rank as one of the most memorable amoung them.

The performances are good. Michael Gambon and Robin Williams are both strong (I think Robin Wright was mis-cast though). However, Joan Cusack gives one of the most incredible performances I've ever seen. She plays a very child like adult, almost retarded but doesn't quite cross the line. The risks she takes and her characterization are all brilliant. There is one momennt when she is at her father's funeral and she just talks about how the word "tinhorns" stays with her. It's so beautiful and pure.

Now, about the ending. There is a scene in the film where the General tries to kill a fly with a gun. The movie should have ended with him trying to shoot the fly, but then shooting himself. However, there is this whole cliche plotline about bad guys becoming good, there's a toy battle which goes against the thematic elements of the movie, and there's an unesecary love scene that ruins the Kubrickian mood. The ending actually reminded me of a movie called Baby Geniuses and anyone who has seen both movies (which I'm sure is unlikely) will agree with me.

Oh well, if you see Toys watch up to the scene with the General and the fly and then stop. If you do this, you will have one of the most enjoyable cinematic experiences of your life.

An eccentric, pacifistic toymaker, Robin Williams, learns to take responsibility and assert himself after his father leaves the family toy factory to his uncle, Michael Gambon, a retired army general, who violates the company philosophy by making war toys. Director Barry Levinson, a sometimes brilliant writer, used his considerable prestige to make this very big film built around this very simple analogy: War is bad/innocence (toys) is good. This film would have had more relevance in 1972 than 1992. As it is, it is two decades too late and two tons too heavy. Worse still, the climax is directly contradicts the theme of the film. Robin Williams is only able to gain the maturity to take control of the company by waging a toy war. Hmmmm, maybe war isn't so bad after all. Still, the film is not a total washout. The sets are quite imaginative, and the film does manage to generate an interesting atmosphere - if you're in the mood for such things. The most interesting thing, however, is the casting of rapper LL Cool J as Michael Gambon's son and Robin Williams' cousin. No explanation is given for the fact that he's African-American. That's a nice touch.

I've seen this film dozens of times over the years, even though I hate it; it's become an annual Christmas tradition at this point. Why? Certainly the production design is a delight to the eyes, even all these years after the fact, maybe even moreso in a CG-saturated world. Robin Williams' performance has taken on new depth in the wake of his demise; we shall not see his like again. The film contains interesting ideas about war, and war toys, and innocence loss and gained, topics that seem uncomfortably forward-thinking in retrospect (or something). There are some clever set pieces and thought-provoking visual moments, without question.

I detested this film when I first saw it on laser disc around Christmas 1993. I fast-forwarded through the entire end battle scene because I found it so dull. I thought the film was messy, unfocused, icky, indulgent and passionless--cookie-cutter. It was part of a wave of bloated fantasy films from the late 80s and early 90s ("Willow", "Mario Brothers"), some good, some bad. It was marketed as being weird-but-quaint, an appeal to those of us raised with Willy Wonka, with all-star cameos sifted in for good measure. It reeked of commercialism and pre-packaging and I was probably too old for it when I saw it. My younger brother saw it first-run in a theater and could only mutter later, "It isn't what you might think it would be."

It's a poorly made film, without a doubt--the opening and ending scenes seem to have been imported in from another project entirely; the coverage in the opening scenes alone is all over the place, a mish-mosh of angles and under-developed ideas that suggests a Christmas pageant of some kind (the only Christmas reference in the film, entirely superflous as it turns out). Later, while Michael Gambon is touring the toy factory it seems clear second-unit footage of an actual scene of dialog was used (dialog muted), randomly cut in to an already-busy and unconsidered moment. Characters come and go with no purpose, random whims spark and are gone ("This is my noise-making suit" "I really like Yolanda and Steve!"), tonally the film shifts from sentimental childish muck to an out-of-nowhere sex scene to the exploding (murdering) of charming kids' toys. Mr. Gambon is a bad-guy caricature filmed from below so you're forced to look up his nose and deal with his bloated, wide-eyed face at all times. Williams and Cuzack seem to be making up their performances as they go, playing creepy adult children, with the latter really hamming it up in "quirky" mode. Set designs exist for no purpose other than to be "cool" (and they truly are), the music, while wonderful, is shoe-horned in to the film at regular intervals (Tori Amos' "Happy Workers" is particularly cringe-worthy, even though the song itself is neato--it's painfully obvious a choreographer was hired and then had to be put to use somehow). It's difficult to care about the characters and their situations or even know what's going on half the time, and the whole bloody thing just goes on and on, until it finally comes to a sputtering stop, ending with a dreamlike, if inexplicable, credit sequence with a flying elephant statue that blows bubbles.

As I said, I really couldn't stand this movie initially, but I kept thinking about it over the years. At some point (probably when I chanced to watched the film on pain meds some time ago now) I began to get into the movie somehow. My co-workers at the time, who had all been kids when the movie was on cable, loved it, they said. Looking at it now, the film reminds me of another time--the score (including Thomas Dolby? In 1992?) and many of the pop culture nods (like a groan-worthy MTV product-placement moment halfway through) were already old and tired when it came out but represent a specific time of historical arrogance in the US, a time long gone.

After having seen the movie at least once, one doesn't expect any more than what it has to offer in terms of narrative, freeing the viewer from the need for a story and allowing one to peek into another world, a pre-9/11 place where the hubris of Hollywood was at an all-time high. It's like Spielberg's "1941" or "Hook," it's fun to watch people tossing money about and indulging in their artistic whims, even at the cost of the audience's patience (and lack of financial support). I get a little wistful nowadays, thinking of the old concept of the "tentpole" movie and how audiences used to flock to a film just because someone like Williams was in it. "Toys" is a good example of the kind of films that were made once upon a time, for better or worse, and whatever else the movie may be about (I honestly couldn't tell you, after all these years, what it's actually "about") it works as a fairytale on that level alone.

Barry Levinson brings us a strange tale of a toy factory whose owner passes on and leaves in the hands of his two children (Williams and Cusack), very much children at heart, and his brother (Gambon), a US General with daddy issues. Seeing an opportunity, the General decides to hijack the traditional methods and mentality of the factory and build a new type of tech; war toys, designed to be economically lethal. Finding this out, it is up to our heroes, along with some friends like the General's camoflauge-happy son (LL Cool J) and a copy girl who falls in love with Williams' character, to stop him.

A case of 'wrong place, wrong time', Levinson odd little film is, though not without faults, surprisingly forward thinking about the desensitisation of youth and the dehumanisation of war. Today, that issue is much the rage (how often have we heard COD being called Propaganda/Army Porn or the use of drones), and in a post Columbine world, the idea of a youth perverted by the lack of distinguishing fantasy from reality is very potent, and one feels that 'Toys' would've been better served coming out now.

What's more, this also qualifies as one of the oddest studio films ever; from the Rene Magritte-centric production design to the interesting mix of actors here, though they all fit their roles well. The late Williams is very much the star of the show, and the child-like, jokey nature of this character fits him like a glove. Cusack as his doll-like sister also does well, giving the role a very youthful, almost eternally naive, quality. Joining them is the always superb Gambon as the pompous and crusty General, and he's having quite the ball in the role, and even Cool J as his son isn't half bad either, and actually has some good comic timing, especially given how meticulous his character is about proper military procedures. We even have Yeardley Smith and Jamie Foxx in small background roles.

However, some tonal indecisions, such as going from the dark subject matter to Williams' ad libs and wacky sight gags like a literal smoking jacket or fake vomit recipes, and a laggy climax involving a rather drawn out toy war do deflate things. In fact, that sums up why I believe the film's rep is so uncertain among critics and audiences; who is the target audience of the film? Is it an anti- war/protect our youth's innocence message for adults, or a quirky, oddball adventure for kids? It's like Levinson wants a live-action Ghibli film, but that careful blend of childhood magic and adult themes is off, making for an uneven, though still oddly fascinating, viewing experience.

Honestly, 'Toys' is worth seeing once as a ambitious novelty. It's such an odd mix of ideas, stories and even practices that there is really no movie like it out there, and it's sort of interesting seeing where it'll go or what it'll do next. Sometimes, a unique misfire is better than mediocre success.