Animation of ‘Toy Story 2’ surpasses original> Performances of actors in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ leaves audiences wanting more

In theaters TOY STORY 2

To infinity and beyond, indeed.

In the four years that have passed since Pixar-Disney’s “Toy Story” hit theaters, the technical leaps and bounds in computer animation are blazingly apparent in their new collaboration, “Toy Story 2.”

This film not only holds up to the original, it sometimes surpasses it in ingenuity and wit, setting a new precedent for the medium while lifting a bar already raised to dizzying heights in the studios’ 1998 film “A Bug’s Life.”

Besting themselves, the Pixar-Disney team has created in “Toy Story 2” a film so seamless in design and so rich in detail even the most jaded of audiences will be struck by the film’s high level of invention.

This is no shameless sequel, but a fully realized film that stands on its own. Once again, Woody (voice of Tom Hanks) is the story’s focus. A bit older now, a bit tattered, his shoulder torn and his stuffing coming loose, Woody is left at home when his owner, Andy, goes away to summer camp.

Hurt and depressed and feeling as if he’s this close to the trash bin, he sulks along with Andy’s other toys, a hodgepodge of characters who seem to exist with the sad knowledge that Andy will one day tire of them and move on to bigger and better toys.

If this gives the film emotional depth, it also gives it its spectacular spark since these toys won’t leave Andy’s bedroom — or his heart — without a fight.

When Woody is kidnapped by an evil toy collector (Wayne Knight), Woody’s pals — Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles), Slinky Dog (Jim Varney), Rex the dinosaur (Wallace Shawn) and Hamm the piggy bank (John Ratzenberger) — all conspire to get him home safe before Andy returns.

No one has to say what these toys are thinking: Without Woody in the bedroom as an anchor, who’s to say what would become of them?

Filled with action, superb new characters, a terrific parody of “Star Wars” and a clear understanding of human nature, “Toy Story 2” proves, without a doubt, that toys are not only for kids, but toys, in fact, are us.

Grade: A

On video A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

Oh, what fools this director, these actors be.

Michael Hoffman’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is so poorly directed, acted, staged and conceived, it comes off more like a late-fall afternoon’s nightmare than it does a film based on one of Shakespeare’s more popular and enduring plays.

In an apparent, bizarre effort to put his cast on bicycles so they could zip through the film’s poorly designed sets, director Hoffman had the bright idea of setting his film in 19th century Tuscany. Still, in spite of the change in era, locale and modus of flight, he touts his film as “William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” no doubt to capitalize on the enormous success of “Shakespeare in Love.”

Unfortunately, there is nothing to love here. Hoffman’s film is banal from the start as it features a cast that has no idea what they’re saying, no ear for the play’s lyricism, no comprehension of the Bard’s subtleties, no grasp of the script’s innuendoes.

So overwhelmed are most by the task of wrapping their mouths around Shakespeare’s words, they apparently forgot that these words are supposed to mean something.

With the exception of Rupert Everett as Oberon and Kevin Kline as Bottom, the cast — which includes Michelle Pfeiffer as Fairy Queen Titania, Calista Flockhart as Helena, Stanley Tucci as Puck and David Strathairn as Duke Theseus — rarely gives the sense that anyone here is at ease with what they’re saying.

They come to Shakespeare as if he’s an uphill challenge, not a passion, certainly never a thrill, a difference that shows in their stilted performances.

No performance is weaker than Calista Flockhart’s, who is so wretchedly miscast as Helena, she proves time and again that her acting really is as thin as she is. Her sweet, bumbling awkwardness may suit television’s “Ally McBeal,” but here she’s an upturned plate of scrambled eggs, a mess of hair and large, snapping eyes that reflect her apparent incapacity for restraint.

The film does have its moments, particularly with the smooth Everett, but more often than not this unintentional Bard-bashing makes the 1935 Academy Award-winning original seem the real thing of dreams.

Grade: D

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear each Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, each Tuesday and Thursday on WLBZ’s “NEWS CENTER 5:30 Today” and “NEWS CENTER Tonight,” and each Saturday and Sunday on NEWS CENTER’s statewide “Morning Report.”