toy story 4 gets dragged back into the franchise’s tech debate by Lilypad, the sinister tablet voiced by Greta Lee. ’s review says the new device threatens the toys’ existence, but the film undercuts its own warning before it can land.
Greta Lee and Lilypad
The review describes Lilypad as a creepy tablet that Bonnie gets and initially loves because it connects her with other girls. That setup gives the film its cleanest contemporary edge: a child drawn in by a device that promises social access, then pulled toward cruelty and online bullying.
Greta Lee voices the tablet, while Scarlett Spears plays Bonnie. Jessie still belongs to Bonnie, keeping Joan Cusack’s character at the center of the family dynamic that the fourth film established. The review also places Buzz Lightyear, voiced by Tim Allen, and Woody, voiced by Tom Hanks, back in the middle of the conflict.
Woody, Jessie, and Bonnie
Woody is living away from the other toys in a feral outdoor existence and is paired with Bo Peep, voiced by Annie Potts. Jessie, meanwhile, crosses paths with Blaze, a kid played by Mykal-Michelle Harris who is described as a real horse lover and toy enthusiast living on a farm. That gives the film a second child-to-toy thread, this one less about screens than about how toys still compete for attention in different worlds.
The review also recalls Jessie’s “When She Loved Me” from Toy Story 2 and says the film revives that material in a spurious and unsatisfying way. Taylor Swift sings a new song in Toy Story 5, but the musical return does not appear to solve the problem the review sees at the film’s core.
Buzz Lightyear Problem
The story’s biggest friction point is the one the review names directly: a film built around “the sinister way addictive tech devices are undermining the imaginative play that kids once had with honest-to-goodness toys” seems to soften its own critique. That is where the review turns skeptical, because the machinery of the plot keeps stepping on the moral it wants to make.
A rogue platoon of upgraded Buzzes is needed to sort out a plot complication, and Smarty Pants — an obsolete battery-powered proto-tech device with an LCD display voiced by Conan O’Brien — adds another layer of toy-era hardware to the mix. The film’s own gadgetry ends up competing with the cautionary tale, which is why the review calls the big tech moral battle compromised. For parents and families watching this franchise shift, the takeaway is blunt: the tablet is the sharper idea, but the movie keeps dulling it.
