Toys (film)

Toys
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Barry Levinson
Written by	Valerie Curtin Barry Levinson
Produced by	Mark Johnson Barry Levinson
Starring	Robin Williams Michael Gambon Joan Cusack Robin Wright LL Cool J
Cinematography	Adam Greenberg
Edited by	Stu Linder
Music by	Hans Zimmer Trevor Horn
Production company	Baltimore Pictures
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	December 18, 1992 (1992-12-18) (United States) March 5, 1993 (1993-03-05) (United Kingdom) April 1, 1993 (1993-04-01) (Australia)
Running time	121 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$50 million[2]
Box office	$23.3 million[3]

Toys is a 1992 American fantasy comedy film directed by Barry Levinson, co-written by Levinson and Valerie Curtin, and starring Robin Williams, Michael Gambon, Joan Cusack, Robin Wright, LL Cool J, and Jamie Foxx in his feature film debut. Released in December 1992 in the United States, and March and April 1993 in the United Kingdom and Australia, respectively, the film was produced by Levinson's production company Baltimore Pictures and distributed by 20th Century Fox. Despite appearing somewhat juvenile at first glance, the movie garnered a PG-13 rating from the MPAA for some language and sensuality.^[4]

The film was a box office bomb at the time of its release, despite its cast and filmmaking. Director Barry Levinson was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Director (losing to David Seltzer for Shining Through). The film did, however, receive Oscar nominations for Art Direction (losing to Howards End) and Costume Design (losing to Bram Stoker's Dracula).^[5] It was also entered into the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival.^[6]

Plot[]

Kenneth Zevo, owner of Zevo Toys in Moscow, Idaho, is dying. He surprises his assistant, Owen Owens, by announcing that instead of his son Leslie succeeding him, his younger brother, US Army Lieutenant General Leland Zevo, will do so. Even Leland, whose relationship with Kenneth is strained, is surprised, noting how Leslie has been apprenticed at the toy factory most of his life. Kenneth agrees Leslie loves toys and his work, but his childlike demeanor would jeopardize the company. Kenneth had even hired Gwen Tyler to work in the factory, hoping she and Leslie would start a relationship to help Leslie mature. Kenneth passes away and Leland reluctantly takes control. Since Leslie and his sister Alsatia know about toymaking, Leland first decides to effectively give them control of the factory. However, Leland's interest is piqued upon hearing about corporate secrets potentially being leaked, and he hires his son, Patrick, a soldier with covert military expertise, to manage security. From Patrick, Leland is inspired to build war toys, even though Leslie explains that Zevo Toys has never made war toys due to Kenneth's overall dislike of war, which caused the strained relationship with his brother. Meanwhile, Leslie finally notices Gwen, and they start dating.

Leland offers to drop the idea of Zevo Toys making war toys, but asks Leslie if he can partition off a small amount of the factory to develop toys of his own. He asks Leslie to avoid the area, fearing that his toys may not be good enough. Unknown to Leslie, Leland is using the space to develop miniature remotely controlled war machines, aspiring to sell these to the military. However, military leaders refuse to buy into his plan, and Leland, becoming unhinged by their refusal, moves ahead with his plan independently. He increasingly takes over the factory's space and increases security. When Leslie sees children being led into one of these areas, he sneaks in and discovers Leland training children to operate the miniature war machines with arcade-like interfaces. Leslie barely escapes the "Sea Swine" amphibious drone guarding an exit, and flees to Gwen's house to reveal his findings. Unbeknownst to him, Leland, aware of Leslie's discovery, prepares to defend his parts of the factory, promoting himself to general of his own army. Patrick learns Leland lied about the death of his mother and quits to warn Leslie.

Leslie, Alsatia, Patrick, Gwen, and Owen go to the factory to fight against Leland, using Zevo's toys against Leland's war machines. Leslie manages to get to Leland, and during a fight, Leland's helicopter attempts to hit Leslie with a missile but misses and hits Leland's control panel, which shuts down all the military toys. As Leslie and Patrick confront Leland, Alsatia is attacked by the Sea Swine and is revealed to be a robot, built by Kenneth as a companion for Leslie after the death of his mother. As Leslie and Patrick tend to Alsatia, Leland tries to escape, but the Sea Swine attacks him. As Leland is hospitalized, Leslie takes over the factory and continues his relationship with Gwen, and Alsatia is fully repaired. Owen continues to work at Zevo, and Patrick prepares to depart for other missions, but remains with the others long enough to attend a brief memorial to Kenneth.

Cast[]

• Robin Williams as Leslie Zevo
• Michael Gambon as Lieutenant General Leland Zevo
• Jack Warden as Old General Zevo
• Joan Cusack as Alsatia Zevo
• Robin Wright as Gwen Tyler
• LL Cool J as Captain Patrick Zevo
• Donald O'Connor as Kenneth Zevo
• Arthur Malet as Owen Owens
• Jamie Foxx as Baker
• Julio Oscar Mechoso as Cortez
• Blake Clark as Hogenstern
• Yeardley Smith as Researcher Miss Drum
• Wendy Melvoin as Choir Soloist
• Debi Mazar as Nurse Debbie

Production[]

Italian designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti spent over one year designing the film's sets, which took over every sound stage at Fox Studios in Los Angeles. The influence of René Magritte's art is obvious in the set design and in some of the costume design. The poster distributed to movie theaters featuring Williams in a red bowler hat against a blue, cloud-lined background evokes The Son of Man. Golconda is featured during a sequence where Williams and Cusack's characters perform in a music video sequence rife with surreal imagery, much of it Magritte-inspired. The film's design was also influenced by Dadaism, Modernism and Italian Futurism—notably the work of Fortunato Depero.

The film has often been noted for many of its outdoor scenes, which feature the Palouse region. All of the outdoor scenes, including the trailer, were filmed on location in southeastern Washington near Rosalia, and north-central Idaho.

Soundtrack[]

The "Into Battle" mix of "Welcome To The Pleasuredome" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood was created for the movie by the song's original producer Trevor Horn and is exclusive to the Toys Soundtrack album.

Video game[]

A video game based on the film, Toys: Let the Toy Wars Begin!, was released in 1993 for the Super NES and Genesis platforms by Absolute Entertainment.^[7] The game is played from an isometric perspective, and involves the player, as Leslie Zevo, attempting to destroy the elephant-head security cameras in the factory, cafeteria, and warehouse levels in order to shut down those defenses. Once the player gets to the Manhattan model, the game switches to a side-scrolling flying shoot-'em-up stage, where the player must fly all the way to the General's control center, shut down the production of the war toys, and save the good name of Zevo Toys.

Home video[]

The film was released on VHS in 1993 and DVD on October 16, 2001.^[8]

Release[]

Promotion[]

The film was publicized with a trailer that featured Williams walking through a large undulating field of green grass, breaking the fourth wall and talking to the audience. This trailer^[9] was parodied on the TV show The Simpsons in the episode "Burns' Heir", substituting Mr. Burns for Williams.

Box office[]

Toys was released in 1,272 venues, earning $4,810,027 and ranking sixth in its opening weekend, second among new releases behind Forever Young.^[10] The film would ultimately gross $23,278,931 in North America,^[3] making it a commercial failure based on a $50 million budget.^[2]

Critical response[]

The film has an approval rating of 30% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 27 reviews, and an average score of 4.05/10. The website's consensus reads, "Like a colorfully overengineered gewgaw on the shelf, Toys might look like fun, but its seemingly limitless possibilities lead mainly to confusion and disappointment."^[11] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.^[12]

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times stated that what made the film "that much sadder a failure is that everyone involved must have sincerely felt they were doing the Lord's work, care and concern going hand in hand with an almost total miscalculation of mood. Even Robin Williams, so lively a voice in Aladdin, is on beatific automatic pilot here, preferring to be warm and cuddly when a little of his energy (paradoxically on splendid display in the film's teaser trailer) is desperately called for. The Grinch Who Stole Christmas seems to have stripped the life from this film as well, leaving a pretty shell, expensive but hollow, in its place."^[13] Peter Travers wrote in the Rolling Stone: "To cut Toys a minor break, it is ambitious. It is also a gimmicky, obvious and pious bore, not to mention overproduced and overlong."^[14]

References[]

External links[]

• Toys: The Surrealist Film that Shocked the Bourgeoisie
• Toys at IMDb
• Toys at Box Office Mojo
• Toys at Rotten Tomatoes