Toy Story 5 has been playing in theaters since 19 June, and from today it is available to buy or rent digitally in the US on Prime Video, Apple TV and Fandango at Home. A Disney+ date follows on 23 September, so this is the first chance to watch it at home for anyone who missed the big-screen run.
The story picks up two years after Toy Story 4, following Buzz, Woody, Jessie and the rest of the toys as Bonnie develops an all-consuming obsession with a new tablet named Lilypad. That obsession turns Lilypad into a rival for Bonnie's attention, and the toys' usual job of staying relevant in a kid's life gets exponentially harder.
Andrew Stanton directs, his first time in the chair on a Toy Story film after co-writing the earlier entries, and he shares the script with Kenna Harris. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen return, and Greta Lee voices Lilypad itself, an unusually literal choice for a franchise about toys competing with screens for a kid's imagination.
It sits at 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the number is earned by the premise rather than by nostalgia: making the antagonist a device the toys cannot out-play gives the series its first genuinely new problem since Andy left for college.
It is the pick for a family evening where the adults want something to argue about afterward, and for anyone who wrote the fifth film off as a victory lap. Those waiting for a subscription rather than a rental can hold out for 23 September.
