Three decades after a computer-animated cowboy and space ranger redefined cinema, Toy Story 5 arrives in theatres this week with a mission that feels less like playtime and more like a parental intervention. The film, opening across Europe, the Americas and Asia from mid-June, elevates cowgirl Jessie to lead the toy box just as their owner Bonnie, now eight, receives a Lilypad tablet from her well-meaning parents. What follows is a direct confrontation between the tactile, imaginative world of plastic and plush and the hypnotic glow of the screen — a battle the filmmakers frame as the central crisis of modern childhood.

That thematic urgency has not translated into universal acclaim. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the picture holds a 93 percent critic score, a figure most productions would envy but which nonetheless marks the lowest rating in the franchise’s history. Swedish reviewers have been particularly reserved: Dagens Nyheter dismissed the film as offering little beyond a simplistic longing for a gentler era, while Uppsala Nya Tidning wondered aloud how many times the concept of sentient toys fearing obsolescence can be milked. Sydsvenskan granted a middling three stars, acknowledging the timeliness of the screen-addiction debate but finding the execution only marginally better than the underwhelming fourth chapter. Across the Atlantic, US cultural commentators have sharpened the critique, with The Atlantic arguing that Pixar’s classic trilogy about growing up has now forgotten its own message, stretching a perfect ending into a superfluous coda.

Yet the conversation the film provokes is undeniably global. Brazilian outlets note that the franchise has grossed over $3 billion and that the new instalment explicitly targets the anxiety every parent and child now navigates around technology. Clarín in Argentina highlights how the film mirrors real-world policy shifts, such as the United Kingdom’s ban on social media for under-16s, and stresses that the tablet arrives not as a villain but as a gift from parents trying to do what is best for their daughter. Indonesian media describe a “classic toys versus gadgets” showdown that resonates deeply in a society undergoing rapid digitisation. Italian commentary, meanwhile, strikes a more philosophical note, musing on the eternal soul of toys and the poetry of childhood dreams that no screen can extinguish.

What emerges from this global patchwork of reaction is a franchise caught between its own legacy and a world it struggles to fully parse. The film’s central insight — that technology is not inherently malign but requires balance — is delivered with Pixar’s customary craft, yet many critics sense a studio running low on invention. The decision to foreground Jessie and a female perspective is widely welcomed, but it cannot mask the structural fatigue of a series that has now pitted its heroes against newer, shinier replacements four times over. As governments from London to Canberra weigh legislative curbs on children’s screen time, Toy Story 5 lands as a well-timed cultural artefact. Whether it will be remembered as a meaningful intervention or merely a competent brand extension depends on whether audiences, like Bonnie, still have room in their hearts for old friends when a universe of digital distraction beckons.