To talk about “Toy Story 4” is to talk about Forky. This is a movie that doesn’t initially appear to have any compelling reason to exist — the forced but satisfying third installment of Pixar’s signature franchise seemed to wrap things up when it came out almost a full decade ago — and yet Forky alone is enough to elevate this potential cash-grab into the beautiful and hilarious coda that its long-running series needed to be truly complete. Forky is the hero we need in 2019.

Forget Andy, forget Woody, and definitely forget that lame Buzz Lightyear (the writers of “Toy Story 4” already have), Forky is the god’s honest truth. He’s everything these films have been working towards. After…

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"Find your inner voice."

Pixar had me sobbing alone in a theater packed full of children and families while watching a movie about talking toys. Nothing has changed.

The first three Toy Story films did a great many things right. Whether discussing jealousy between various toys and their owners, the terror of abandonment, or the melancholia of growing up, they were each educational tools for children as well as swift, graceful action pictures, bursting with foot chases and plans gone sour and the stress of a toy left behind. No matter how the original Toy Story trilogy ended up in your Pixar ranking, they're surely near the top, ranging from excellent to near-perfect cultural objects of evolving animation, in…

I avoided all of the marketing for this first film past the first trailer that introduced us to Forky, and because of that I was fully ready to hate him. Even though I was combatively optimistic about this movie being great, and annoyed at every internet director who insisted that their hatred of sequels was a smarter bet than believing Pixar of all studios could make yet another good movie, I figured Forky would be a character that was played for childish laughs. And I was fucking wrong!!!!! Forky rules!!!

In fact, everything about this movie rules?? It's easily the best-looking animated film I have ever seen, and possibly the best-looking film I think I've ever seen? There's a rain…