Themes: Innocence Lost, Fathers and Sons, Fathers and Daughters
Main Cast: Robin Williams, Michael Gambon, Joan Cusack, Robin Wright Penn, LL Cool J
Release Year: 1992
Country: US
Run Time: 121 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
Barry Levinson directed this cautionary fantasy fable--a triumph of production design--concerning the clash between benevolent, funny toys and malevolent, violent war toys and video games. Donald O'Connor is the kindly, gentle Kenneth Zevo, founder of Zevo Toys. The workers love him and the love they feel for Zevo comes through in the lovingly cute toys they produce. His son Leslie (Robin Williams) is an eccentric inventor who concentrates on coming up with different styles of plastic vomit and over-sized ears. His addle-headed daughter Alsatia (Joan Cusack) enjoys trying out all of Leslie's inventions. But their innocent, idyllic existence is soon to be shattered. Kenneth is dying and he is reluctant to bequeath the factory to the immature hands of Leslie and Alsatia. He finally decides to pass on his factory to his three-star general brother (Michael Gambon), reasoning that the general will run the factory efficiently and prod Leslie and Alsatia into adulthood. When Kenneth dies, the general and his army surplus son Patrick (LL Cool J) immediately turn Zevo Toys into an oppressive fascistic environment. The general also stops production of the innocent Zevo products and forces the workers to manufacture violent interactive video games and sadistic war toys. Leslie must rouse himself out of his over-long childhood to preserve the tradition of Zevo Toys. Although Toys did not fare well at the box office, it features a stunning combination of production design by Ferdinando Scarfiotti and art direction by Edward Richardson. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Donald O'Connor - Kenneth Zevo; Arthur Malet - Owen Owens; Jack Warden - Old Gen. Zevo; Debi Mazar - Nurse Debbie; Clinton Allmon - Gen. Magraw; Felton Anderson III - Child of the World Choir; Kate Benton - Researcher; Alex Bookston - Minister; Lisel Brunson - Factory Worker; Jenny Canales - Child of the World Choir; Blake Clark - Hogenstern; Jacque Lynn Colton - Woman in Supermarket; Shelly Desai - Shimera; Martha Faulkner - Mary, Housekeeper; Delores Finch - Factory Worker; Lisa Fink - Factory Worker; Jamie Foxx - Baker; Amy Arwen Gibbins - Child of the World Choir; Jerry Goldman - Factory Worker; Julie Haydon - Researcher; Nicholas Herbon - Child of the World Choir; Benjamin Hernandez - Child of the World Choir; Sarah M. LeFever - Child of the World Choir; Sam Levinson - War Room Player; Jonathan McGarry - 'Great Egghead'; Gerald McKinnie - Factory Worker; Julio Oscar Mechoso - Cortez; Art Metrano - Guard at Desk; Kristy E. Miller - Child of the World Choir; Brooks Mondae - Guard in General's Office; Stephen Park - Researcher; Tashequa J. Peterson - Child of the World Choir; Manny Portel - Joe; Heather Rogers - Child of the World Choir; Lisette Yvonne Saucedo - Child of the World Choir; Dolores E. Sebrasky - Factory Worker; Summer Simaan - Child of the World Choir; Yeardley Smith - Researcher; Jimmy Spooner - Child of the World Choir; Ralph Tabakin - Fred; Tommy Townsend - Gen. Tagnell; Kevin West - Technician, with Tigers; Roldan Nill Williams - Factory Worker; Sarah Yee - Child of the World Choir; Wendy Melvoin - Choir Soloist; Ellen Chenoweth; John Stevens - Factory Worker
Credit
Ed Richardson - Art Director, Anthony Thomas - Choreography, Peter Giuliano - Co-producer, Albert Wolsky - Costume Designer, Barry Levinson - Director, Stu Linder - Editor, Enya - Composer (Music Score), Thomas Dolby - Composer (Music Score), Hans Zimmer - Composer (Music Score), Ferdinando Scarfiotti - Production Designer, Adam Greenberg - Cinematographer, Mark Johnson - Producer, Barry Levinson - Producer, Charles James Newirth - Producer, Linda de Scenna - Set Designer, Valerie Curtin - Screenwriter, Mick Garris - Screenwriter, Barry Levinson - Screenwriter, Jeff Rona - Additional Music
Toys is a 1992comedy film directed by Barry Levinson and starring Robin Williams, Michael Gambon, Joan Cusack, Robin Wright, LL Cool J, and Jamie Foxx in his film debut. 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, but the recent burgeoning of drone warfare has given it an ominous prescience. Levinson was consequently nominated for, but did not win, a Razzie award for worst director, such was the magnitude of perceived directorial failure. The film did, however, receive Oscar nominations for art direction and costume design.
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.
The film starts with a shot of the toy factory Zevo Toys. The owner Kenneth Zevo is dying, and expresses to his assistant that he wants ownership of the factory to go to his brother, and not his son Leslie (Williams) who he deems to be too immature. After Zevo dies, his brother Lt General Leland Zevo takes over. At first he does not know what to do with the factory, but he soon decides to make a series of war toys. The General brings his son Patrick (LL Cool J) to oversee the factory. The General starts to take over more and more of the factory, to the dismay of Leslie, his sister Alsatia (Cusack) and their friends Gwen and Owen. Leslie starts to become suspicious, as children start to arrive at the factory. He breaks into one of the research area, and discovers that they are being trained to wage war through videogames. Patrick decides to go against his father when he sees him becoming mad with power. He and Leslie launch an attack on the General's labs to shut down his war projects. There is a showdown in the warehouse between the war toys and Leslie and his sister. Leslie manages to defeat war toys using the old traditional toys, but his sister is destroyed, revealing that she is an android built by his father. The General is finally defeated by his own secret weapon the "Sea Swine", and Leslie takes control of the factory. Leslie fixes his sister, Gwen becomes his girlfriend, and Patrick decides to leave. The final scene is a shot of the long grass surrounding the toy factory.
Note — a short remix of Tori Amos' "The Happy Worker" plays within the film itself but was not included on the soundtrack. However, a prominently distributed bootleg copy of her 1987 album Y Kant Tori Read contains both of these songs as "bonus tracks," leading many to believe that the latter (titled "Workers" on the bootleg) was a legitimately released track.
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, 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.
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[1]. The game is played from an overhead perspective, and involves you, 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 you get to the Manhattan model, the game switches to a side-scrolling Gradius-style level, where you 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.
