Review of Lightyear (2022) by Cutloso — 17 Jun 2022

This movie isn't terrible. But it's not good. As a comedy it fails. I laughed only a few times, almost exclusively at the cat. Most of the jokes were crickets in my audience and a bunch made me roll my eyes.

As a sci-fi movie it fails. It gives us the most basic child version of several sci-fi concepts stolen from other movies like Interstellar. And if you think for more than a few seconds, so much of it doesn't make sense. There was a cool fight scene and a couple of good action moments, but for the most part I found myself not caring about the action.

The movie does this thing where it keeps throwing a wrench in the plan, creating obstacles that the characters must overcome. This is normally a good strategy and makes any later success feel earned and satisfying. But every obstacle is a result of dumb characters, silly mistakes, or simply being clumsy. This makes it hard to stay invested. When this strategy is executed better, there is a much better reason for the obstacles, such as a really smart antagonist.

Late in the movie, it goes in a direction that I wasn't a fan of. And we get a few ridiculously cheesy moments, one that made me cringe so hard it hurt. The great animation doesn't make this worth watching.