Rating: NNNNN
Earning major Uncle Glenn brownie points, I take my seven-year-old niece to Toy Story On Ice. She’s happy, even as I steer her away from the $8 Buzz Lightyear snowcones. She knows the film well, and doesn’t mind that skates, gravity and cumbersome costumes detract from the grace of the original animated classic. Or that the voices and songs have been pre-recorded (no laboured breathing during triple Axels). Or that Sid, the toy-destroying villain, seems to have morphed from a Caucasian kid in the movie to a black kid on skates. “That’s subtle racism,” I whisper. I try to tell her that much of the joy of the original came from the Pixar animation, but she’s not listening. She’s charmed by the familiar characters, like Woody, Bo Peep and the Trolls. She tells me to watch and drink my Toy Story Diet Coke. Things improve in the second “act,” set in Sid’s bedroom, where his mutilated dolls seem like something from a Tim Burton flick. There’s also, to my mind, a homoerotic scene between Woody and Buzz. As we leave, she asks if I saw the soldier fall. I hadn’t. Damn. Maybe she saw more than I did, after all.
