A new age Buzz Lightyear opens his eyes to find a few dozen others like him stationed inside a lorry after an accident. The tiny space rangers get connected to each other and enter the forest, navigating the wilderness with their furrowed eyebrows and squeaky laser beams. In its opening minutes, Toy Story 5 holds a strange anthropological sway. The swanky group of Buzz Lightyears get out of their packaging like early humans gaining consciousness. They start a fire at night and are struck by the glow of a star in the sky, discovering language in the process. Their first words, “star command”, gives them a direction to reach home beyond the galaxy. Their robotic artificiality gets a naturalist reckoning.

Filled with more such interactions of toys with the animate world, Toy Story 5 builds a thesis of terrestrial wonder which swiftly contrasts its central theme of kids getting addicted to screens. The attention is pitted largely on Jessie (Joan Cusack), who is worried when her owner Bonnie’s parents get her an interactive tablet, Lilypad (Greta Lee), to help her make friends. Wasting no time, Jessie confronts Lilypad, who shows her how Bonnie already made two new online friends — a concept that’s alien to the old-school sensibilities of the cowgirl. Due to mounting peer pressure, Bonnie refuses to play with Jessie, who then along with her bouncy companion Bullseye, get mistakenly transported to the house of Jessie’s previous owner, Emily.

In many ways, the fifth part in the popular animated franchise brings back the charm of some of its predecessors. It goes back to the feeling of abandonment explored in Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3, with Jessie as the anchor point as she befriends newer gadgets and tries to look beyond their technological traits. She is often made to be didactic to spell out the perils of kids getting hooked to screens and how it impacts their psychological well-being. Even the visual design alarmingly points to this idea, showing kids and even adults being slaves to phones and computers.

It is a timely moral tale but the film doesn’t restrict itself only to highlight these grievances. The makers define the notion of ‘play’ with stirring imagination. In a scene, Jessie rapidly smashes the buttons of a potty trainer gadget, Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien), and he tells her that she played well. “Play? That’s not play. Its just a game,” says Jessie while going on to demonstrate what ‘real play’ is when the new kid Blaze, living in the same house where Emily once lived, cooks up a story with a bunch of toys, who come alive in its telling. Soon, Blaze finds out the gadgets and makes them part of the tale too, as the sequence synthesises into a reminder about the marvel of creativity and its ability to make joy palpable.

The film extends this feeling of play in interactions of the toys with animals exhibiting a magical post-modern co-existence. When the group of Buzz Lightyears encounter a deer and point their lasers on its face, the moment quickly transcends into a feeling of wonder as the deer begins to brush its face against the plastic body of the toy. Soon, other animals are seen caressing the toys, as a group of yellow butterflies surround the body of a blushing Buzz. The animation remains revelatory in these portions, as it is careful not to beautify the scene with excessive embellishments; the focus remains sharp and rooted in simplicity so as to reciprocate the feeling of enchantment that is present in nature’s abundance and can seldom be found in the solitary offerings of a device.

Even with its smooth critique of high-tech devices and phones, Toy Story 5 is careful not to turn into a cacophony of cynical voices. The film ultimately bats for embracing technology with mindfulness without forgetting the older ways of connecting with each other in real-time. Similar to the sweeping theme across the franchise, it withholds the importance of toys in shaping the life of kids and even breathes fresh life into some of the memorable characters, adding a sense of age to their being. Like how Woody getting a paunch and part of his bald head reflecting light on others’ faces becomes a recurring joke to lighten up emotive moments. Even though Woody is rendered on the sidelines here as the focus stays on Jessie, the oldie cowboy sprawls up his nostalgic charm, especially in the profusely comforting voice of Tom Hanks. His lively banters with the original Buzz (Tim Allen) remain the film’s highlight.

The fifth part, however, belongs to Jessie as she transforms into a new version of maturity, discovering deeper truths about her existence and relevance in the lives of kids she played with. Voiced with a touch of her quintessential wit and glaring empathy by Joan Cusack, Jessie becomes a simple gateway to understand the nature of play and the dangers of being perpetually online, represented starkly by Lilypad in the assured voice of Greta Lee. Jessie’s thoughtful reckoning fuels the film with a humanistic zeal, something that is drifting away quickly in a rampantly digitised world, making the film to be the only one in the franchise to have direct parallels with the dystopian reality of our times.

It is only fitting that the newToy Story sets out to speak to the emerging attention-deficit generation in a language it has lovingly developed over the years. Through an adventure with goofy characters, it shows how joy can be lost and how it may be preserved: by reconnecting with the wild, rekindling friendships, soaring on tire swings beneath the trees, and surrendering to imagination. In its most rudimentary form, it reiterates that seeking beauty is paramount, trusting creativity is rewarding, and the vibrant hues of mischief and tomfoolery should never go extinct.

Toy Story 5 is currently running in theatres