The Brave Little Toaster – 4 out of 5
I was just a little boy when The Brave Little Toaster came
out but, even as a child, I wasn’t too interested in the product. There was something about talking appliances
that didn’t speak to me so I never pushed to see it. As I got older, my interest in seeing this
one grew thinner and thinner—all because I judged it on it being about
anthropomorphic household items. Despite
my pushback, I’ve only heard good things about this movie and many, many, many
of my friends have stated a deep love for this feature. So, recently, I relented and decided to
finally give this one a chance...and it really is a great movie!
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Yeah, the toaster is brave but not as brave as our soldiers--is what your conservative Facebook friend would say. |
In a cabin out in the country, Toaster (Deanna Oliver),
Radio (Jon Lovitz), Lampy (Timothy Stack), Blanky (Timothy E. Day) and Kirby
(Thurl Ravenscroft), not so patiently wait for their master, the young Rob
(Wayne Kaatz), to return. Years have
gone and they fear they will never see their friend and loved one again. With determination, they decide they are
going to venture out and travel to the city to be reunited with Rob but nothing
can prepare them for the dangers that lurk behind every corner…
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The longer you stare at this picture of Blanky with those crazy eyes the funnier it gets. |
To put it simply, The Brave Little Toaster is a simple
concept that results in a charming and adorable feature but also surprised me
with some great music and some shocking adult themes and undertones. The latter part really shocked me because
when you have a movie that literally centers on appliances that can speak,
having adult oriented themes feel like the furthest thing you would
experience. However, this movie
introduces some heavy emotional drama and even brings in things like hinted
suicide as the group finds themselves at a junk yard and a sentient vehicle
willingly drives into a compactor in order to be destroyed. This element isn’t really a surprise in
retrospect because many of those who worked on this feature went on to work for
Pixar and we all know how that production company changed how animated films
can be but having this dynamic that isn’t holding back on the heart and drama
and isn’t talking down to the audience while presenting it in a stereotypical
kid’s feature format was unheard of in 1987.
Honestly, this film felt very revolutionary.
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Um yeah, not entirely a kid's movie. |
The cast in this film is doing a fantastic job at bringing
the characters to life. This shouldn’t
be a surprise because you have the likes of Phil Hartman and Jon Lovitz in the
crew. Everyone involved did such an
amazing job of making their character heartfelt and endearing. I also really enjoyed the way some smaller
characters were impressions of some Hollywood icons like Jack Nicholson, Peter
Lorre, and Joan Rivers. These types of
parodies were much bigger “back in the day” for animated features and have
kinda faded away from modern cartoons and feature-length films.
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Not going to lie, Peter Lorre light is terrifying as hell. |
There’s something also very refreshing about watching a
hand-drawn, 2D animated film in 2018.
Okay, as much as I rail against toxic nostalgia, I must vehemently state
this isn’t me getting to that level. I’m
not going to whine that all animated movies currently made are terrible and the
only good ones were the ones during my formative years. Nope.
Instead, it was just kinda cool to see a hand-drawn, sorta dirty
animated film that doesn’t look overly polished. You can see all the tell-tale signs of the
“old days” of animation and it’s pretty cool to see how far we’ve come. That isn’t to say The Brave Little Toaster
isn’t well animated—far from that. It’s
a beautifully constructed movie that looks terrific but one that also
illustrates just how advanced and how developed the world of animation has
become.
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I'd doubt my own bravery if I ran into a group of sentient appliances in the woods. |
The Brave Little Toaster is a sweet, super endearing and
adorable animated movie. The feature looks
great, the voice acting is fantastic, and the story doesn’t shy away from
getting into some real drama, emotion and even some dark themes. I kinda feel like I cheated myself by not
seeing this when it came out but I’m definitely glad I finally decided to give
it a shot.
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