Lamp Life (3 out of 5 stars).

Lamp Life is a cute short animation film focusing on what happened to Bo when she was absent from Toy Story 3 until reuniting with Woody in the fourth film. The animation is colorful and wonderful. It is cute and fun for the kids. The story was left dull with Bo's storyline. Really making this short film feeling like an extra add on that is not needed.

Am a big Pixar fan and have loved many of their short films, the best of which some of my favourite animated short films (so shorts like 'Geri's Game', 'Presto', 'One Man Band' and have loved many of their SparkShorts shorts, most very mature and bold in themes, too). It was interesting to see a bigger role for Bo Peep, a secondary character in the 'Toy Story' films and have a story revolving around her and her life.

'Lamp Life' is a long way from being among Pixar's best work, short films and overall and doesn't fully ignite. It is charming enough though and has more than enough to stop any light from completely extinguishing. It was interesting to see things from Bo Peep's perspective for the first time and for her to be the lead and that is done surprisingly well, despite it being very wanting story-wise. So slightly above average feelings here for 'Lamp Life'.

Cannot fault the animation, which is as vibrant, expressive and beautifully detailed as one expects from Pixar. The music fits nicely and has presence without being overbearing. The voice acting is also fine, with Annie Potts voicing Bo Peep with charm and a little sass.

There are more than enough amusing moments and there is enough charm too.

Did feel though that 'Lamp Life' was rather wanting on the story front. The story here is rather thin and over-stretched, all the Pixar shorts are on the slight side story-wise but this is the first time from recollection where one has been criticised for feeling over-stretched by me.

Meaning that occasionally it did feel draggy and too much of a series of comedic moments that are amusing but not very inspired. Saw absolutely no reason for the lambs to be there, they serve no purpose at all and have next to nothing to do.

Overall, above average but a little disappointing by Pixar standards. 6/10.

"Lamp Life" is an American 7-minute animated short film from 2020 and as you can see from the photo, this is a little add-on to the Oscar-winning Toy Story 4. Fittingly the writer and director is Valerie LaPointe, who was also one of several writers from Toy Story 4 and ho knows, she could be next in line for directing a Pixar/Disney full feature film because these two big companies were also in charge of this short film. I liked watching it all in all. It shows us how Bo Peep ended up in the amusement park and in general what happened to her before this movie here. We see how she is played with by two kids and they even use her as a toy to cuddle with before realizing (as always, a recurring theme in Toy Story movies) that they are too old to do so. So she ends up outside in the garbage before being picked up and finding a new home at the antique shop where she is mostly looked at and dedusted than really used for anything. (How is there even dust if she is moving?) Too boring, so she plans her escape finally. And succeeds. The police cars arriving on location have no clue what happened and she sure knows how to handle difficult situations, a true modern woman, not just the laser alarm, but also the kinda scary male robot character(s) that we see here briefly, but much longer in Toy Story 4.

This is mostly a collection of quick funny sequences and that is alright. Given the running time it works. Just one example would be the "moths to a flame" reference. Or to a lamp. By the way, definitely not a coincidence here, but a little play on words that her flock of lambs is always by her side. I liked these. A lot. Pretty much more than Bo Peep because I always preferred the cowgirl character when it comes to the females in Toy Story, but it's alright. A bit sad that the lambs did not get more material, actually any material at all, except moving their eyes and bodies. Oh well, they probably knew that they could not do anything so quickly that Shaun the Sheep hadn't done before them and most likely better.

The star here is of course Annie Potts, who voices the protagonist. Tom Hanks' brother Jim voices Woody and it is not the first time he does actually in a short film. Overall, I liked the watch here. There are quite a few Toy Story short films out there already now, some 3 times as long as this one here, but also some are certainly worse than the outcome this time. It's not a really great watch by any definition, but I've seen worse and the animation is always top-notch anyway. We should not take this for granted. I would say it is quality-wise approximately on par with "Toy Story 4", which is also an okay, but not great movie. Inferior to "Toy Story 3" I'd say. No surprise that the latter easily won Best Annimated Feature at the Oscars back then, but this one here was definitely not a lock by any definitions and at least 2 other films had similar chances during Oscar night. Okay, I am drifting away now, so time to end my review. I give the outcome a positive recommendation here. Thumbs up.