Buzz Lightyear (voice of Chris Evans), left, and Alisha Hawthorne...

Buzz Lightyear (voice of Chris Evans), left, and Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba) in "Lightyear." Credit: Pixar/Pixar

PLOT An astronaut stranded on a hostile planet must find a way home.

CAST Chris Evans, Keke Palmer, Taika Waititi

RATED PG (mild action and peril)

LENGTH 1:40

 WHERE Area theaters

BOTTOM LINE Pixar’s origin story of Buzz Lightyear lacks that “Toy Story” magic.

What do you love the most about Buzz Lightyear, the action-figure astronaut from Pixar’s “Toy Story?” For me, it’s his steadfast belief that he’s real. Convinced that he’s a man on a mission from Star Command, Buzz moved through the world — actually just a kid’s bedroom — with a single-minded purpose that veered into the delusional. He was funny and poignant, a puffed-up Captain Kirk pricked by life’s cruel pin.

But wait — what if Buzz was real?

That’s the premise of “Lightyear,” which cleverly presents itself as the sci-fi movie that inspired the toy. Now, instead of a quixotic, buffoonish Buzz with the voice of Tim Allen, we have a sincere, All-American Buzz with the voice of Chris Evans (“Captain America”). It’s certainly a smart way to expand the “Toy Story” franchise. It also undermines everything that made Buzz Lightyear so endearing.

This time, Buzz’s mission is no fantasy: He and Commander Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba) are stranded with their crew on a hostile swamp-planet with man-eating vines and massive insects. Buzz’s mission involves hyperspace time travel, which means that with each failed journey he returns to find that his colleagues have grown older, Buzz eventually teams up with Hawthorne’s granddaughter, Izzy (Keke Palmer).

The Alisha Hawthorne character, while minor, has created the biggest buzz around “Lightyear” because she has a wife — and together they share Pixar’s first same-sex kiss. Disney initially nixed that, then restored it after objections from LGBTQ+ employees. That decision took at least a little guts: “Lightyear” predictably has been banned in more than a dozen countries, and the hugely profitable China market could follow. Still, that historic moment — really just a split-second — will likely be this movie’s legacy.

“Lightyear” otherwise carefully follows the Pixar formulabut unfortunately fills in the blanks with some annoying characters. Aside from a blanded-out Buzz and a chirpy Izzy, we get a bumbling dimwit named Mo Morrison (Taika Waititi) and an abrasive reprobate named Darby Steel (Dale Soules)  As for Zurg, the longtime arch-nemesis of Buzz, his identity is finally revealed, though to say more would be a spoiler.
 

One final nit to pick: If this is a movie-within-a-movie, then is this even the “real” Buzz? At any rate, “Lightyear” marks one giant leap for gay representation on screen, but it mostly feels like a misstep.

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