REVIEW: 'Toy Story 3' proves one of best third installments of all time

When I was a child, I had a large stuffed buffalo. At night, I’d imagine myself a big game hunter on the old frontier.

By rubbing my hair on the fur, I generated enough static electricity to cause a spark to jump between my hand (in the shape of a gun, naturally) and the buffalo’s skin. I loved that stuffed animal, and the agony I felt when my mother finally deemed I’d outgrown him and threw him in the Dumpster is palpable enough to make a nearly 40-year-old man shed a tear.

We all have similar “Velveteen Rabbit” stories — stories about toys that were given life by our play, stories of toys that did not simply serve the utilitarian function of keeping us distracted for a couple of hours but rather were our friends.

It is this nostalgic touchstone that “Toy Story 3” distills so magnificently, delivering an emotional sucker punch that will knock adults back on their heels and reinforce in kids what they already know: Toys can be every bit as real as their flesh-and-blood playmates.

Andy is all grown up and about to leave for college. In the corner of his room is his chest full of toys. He hasn’t played with cowboy Woody (Tom Hanks), spaceman Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), Jesse (Joan Cusack), Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head (Don Rickles, Estelle Harris) or Rex (Wallace Shawn) in years, and now must decide which toys he wants to take along to school with him, which ones he wants to stash in the attic, and which to simply throw out.

Though Woody, always the optimistic father figure of the bunch, assures the rest of the toys that things are going to be fine, a series of mishaps leads to the gang being donated to the Sunnyside daycare center.

Sunnyside is part Island of Misfit Toys and part Florida — it’s where the elderly go to retire. It is presided over by Lotso (Ned Beatty), a kindly stuffed bear who describes their new home as a paradise where toys are played with every day, where there is an unending stream of new children, and where no toy will ever be neglected or outgrown.

But for every Eden, there’s a snake. The new arrivals are cast into the toddlers’ room, where they are summarily beaten and abused. When they protest, Lotso and his minions crack down, imposing martial law.

Desperate to get back to Andy, Woody and Buzz plan a daring prison break, leading to a spectacular, breathless final act of legitimate life-and-death peril.

A Pixar film is the closest thing you have to a guarantee in Hollywood. Name even one other cinematic enterprise in which you can take your seat, brazenly certain of complete fulfillment. The magicians at Pixar have an almost godlike attention to detail and unequaled creative contemplation.

For Pixar, story is sacred above all else.

The folks there know that without a compelling story and vibrant characters, even their dazzling animation (and it is dazzling) is a waste of time. Their narratives are wrapped around classic, epic archetypes, compliments this time of Michael Arndt, who made a name for himself writing “Little Miss Sunshine.”

They don’t rush things, either. Third films in a series are notoriously bad (think “The Godfather,” “Alien,” or even “Star Wars”) and Pixar decided to give its artists all the time they needed to get this one right.

“Toy Story 3” arrives on screens 11 years after its predecessor and 15 years since the original film made a tiny company called Pixar an overnight sensation.

While there is more than enough hilarity and high jinx (Ken and Barbie’s relationship and Buzz reset in Spanish mode are worth the price of admission alone), “Toy Story 3” is, necessarily, bittersweet and melancholy, representing the milestone of migrating from childhood to adulthood and laying aside those accoutrements once deemed indispensable.

All this leads to an ending as precisely beautiful as one could ever hope for. These plastic toys show us what it means to stick together, what it means to be a family, what it means to be human.

GRADE: A+

Toy Story 3

Cast: Voices of Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles, Estelle Harris, Wallace Shawn, Ned Beatty

Director: Lee Unkrich

Theaters: Hollywood, Tinseltown, Gold Hill, Carmike, Chapel Hills, Cinemark, Cinemark IMAX

Rated: G

Running time: 1 hour, 43 minutes