Toys (film)

Toys
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Barry Levinson
Produced by	Mark Johnson Barry Levinson
Written by	Valerie Curtin & Barry Levinson
Starring	Robin Williams Michael Gambon Joan Cusack Robin Wright LL Cool J Donald O'Connor Arthur Malet Jamie Foxx Jack Warden Debi Mazar
Music by	Hans Zimmer
Cinematography	Adam Greenberg
Editing by	Stu Linder
Studio	Baltimore Pictures
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	December 18, 1992 (USA)
Running time	121 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$43 million
Box office	$21,452,082 (USA)

Toys is a 1992 comedy film directed by Barry Levinson and starring Robin Williams, Michael Gambon, Joan Cusack, Robin Wright, LL Cool J, and introducing Jamie Foxx as Baker. The film failed at the box office at the time of its release, despite its impressive cast and lavish filmmaking. Levinson was criticized for a lack of plot focus. The magnitude of perceived directorial failure was such that Levinson was consequently nominated for (but did not win) a Razzie Award for Worst Director. The film did, however, receive Oscar nominations for art direction (Ferdinando Scarfiotti, Linda DeScenna) and costume design. It was also entered into the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival.

René Magritte's art, particularly The Son of Man, is obvious in its influence on the set design, and in part the costume design, of the film. The poster for the film distributed to movie theaters features Robin Williams in a red bowler hat against a blue, cloud-lined background. Golconda is also featured during a sequence where Robin Williams and Joan Cusack's characters perform in a music video sequence rife with surreal imagery, much of it Magritte-inspired.

Plot

At the Zevo Toys factory in a lovely field of green, owner Kenneth Zevo (Donald O'Connor) is dying. He expresses to his assistant Owens (Arthur Malet) that he wants control of the business to go to his brother, a retired military man, and not to his son Leslie (Robin Williams), whom he deems to be too immature.

After Zevo dies, his brother Lt. General Leland Zevo (Michael Gambon) takes over. At first he has no interest in anything at the factory until he hears of possible leaks and corporate espionage. The General brings in his son Patrick (LL Cool J), a soldier and expert in covert military operations, to oversee security. He soon decides to make a series of war toys to the dismay of Leslie as Zevo has never made war toys because his father, Kenneth, did not like them.

After a confrontation with Leslie, Leland halts the development of the war toys. He asks Leslie for some space to work alone to develop some toys of his own and states he doesn't want Leslie to see them because they might not be good enough. Leland's continued demands for more space, rigid security and top-secret projects dismay the childlike Leslie, his innocent and child-like sister Alsatia (Joan Cusack), a factory worker Leslie has developed a crush on, Gwen (Robin Wright) and Owens.

Leslie becomes more suspicious when Owens shows him children arriving at the factory and ushered into the restricted area. He breaks into a research area and discovers kids playing realistic war video games. After setting off the alarm he runs through a door and falls into a well-like water tank where he sees and seems to be drowned by another toy of the Leland's, the "Sea Swine" (an amphibious drone with more autonomy than the other toys).

Patrick decides to go against his father after he discovers that his mother did not die of appendicitis but disappeared when his father sent her on a covert mission (reconnaissance). After revealing his father's true plans of using dangerous weaponry in the form of toys, Patrick, Leslie, Alsatia, Gwen and Owen launch an attack on the General's labs to shut down his war projects.

The increasingly demented General sees this as his greatest war opportunity and attempts to destroy them all. First he sends out weapons disguised as toys, then he sends his "Tommy Tanks" and "Whirly Burly Helicopters".

An intense battle takes place between the General's toys and the original Zevo toys.

Leslie manages to win the battle and along with Patrick is very angry with the General for attempting to kill them all. Suddenly Alsatia is attacked by the General's secret weapon the Sea Swine, revealing that she is a gynoid built by Leslie's father as a play-mate for Leslie. While they are seeing to Leslie's sister, Leland tries to make his escape, but the malfunctioning Sea Swine tracks him down and attacks him as well resulting in his defeat.

In the end, Leslie is the new head of Zevo Toys, Alsatia is fixed, Gwen becomes Leslie's girlfriend, Leland is hospitalized, and Patrick decides to move on to other missions. As peace is restored to the toy factory in lush green pasture, a large toy elephant floats by overhead.

Cast

Character	Actor
Leslie Zevo	Robin Williams
Lt. General Leland Zevo	Michael Gambon
Alsatia Zevo	Joan Cusack
Gwen Tyler	Robin Wright
Capt. Patrick Zevo	LL Cool J
Kenneth Zevo	Donald O'Connor
Owen Owens	Arthur Malet
Baker	Jamie Foxx
Cortez	Julio Oscar Mechoso
Hagenstern	Blake Clark
Researcher Miss Drum	Yeardley Smith
Choir Soloist	Wendy Melvoin
Old General Zevo	Jack Warden
Nurse Debbie	Debi Mazar
Little Boy	Jack Levinson
Intro Singer	Idina Menzel

Trailer

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

Soundtrack

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Performer	Length
1.	"Winter Reveries" (Excerpt from Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 1)	Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, arranged by Trevor Horn	Shirley Walker Orchestra	2:03
2.	"The Closing of the Year" (Main Theme)	Trevor Horn, Hans Zimmer	The Musical Cast of Toys featuring Wendy & Lisa	3:28
3.	"Ebudae"	Enya, Roma Ryan	Enya	1:49
4.	"The Happy Worker"	Horn, Bruce Woolley	Tori Amos	4:19
5.	"Alsatia's Lullaby"	Zimmer	Julia Migenes & Hans Zimmer	4:16
6.	"Workers"	Horn, Woolley	The Musical Cast of Toys	1:11
7.	"Let Joy and Innocence Prevail" (Instrumental)	Horn, Zimmer	Pat Metheny	4:59
8.	"The General"	Zimmer	Michael Gambon & Hans Zimmer	2:21
9.	"The Mirror Song"	Horn, Woolley, Dolby	Thomas Dolby with Robin Williams & Joan Cusack	4:35
10.	"Battle Introduction"	Zimmer	Robin Williams	2:45
11.	"Welcome to the Pleasuredome" (Into Battle Mix)	Peter Gill, Holly Johnson, Brian Nash, Mark O'Toole	Frankie Goes To Hollywood	4:59
12.	"Let Joy and Innocence Prevail"	Horn, Zimmer	Grace Jones	5:01
13.	"The Closing of the Year / Happy Workers" (Reprise)	Horn, Woolley	The Musical Cast of Toys (including Wendy & Lisa and Seal)	5:28
Total length:				47:14

Video game

A video game based on the film, Toys: Let the Toy Wars Begin!, was released in 1993 for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis systems by Absolute Entertainment. The game is played from an overhead 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 Gradius-style level, 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.

Reception

Despite prophesying new military systems such as Global Hawk and Predator drones, Toys received a generally negative reaction from critics and failed commercially.

External links

• Toys at the Internet Movie Database
• Toys at AllRovi
• Toys at Rotten Tomatoes
• A review of Toys from Rolling Stone
• Toys (VG) from Gamespot