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At the center of it all we find the exceptionally well-cast voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. When I think about Woody and Buzz, how they look and act, it makes me smile. When I hear their words in my head in their respective tones, it's close to nirvana. Hanks has been mostly absent this decade from the sort of goofy comedies he did early in his career, and Woody is a reminder that, Hanks' deftness with serious work aside, his true genius is in seamlessly and convincingly blending irony and sincerity in a cocky attitude that always threatens to give way to a quiver. He may have been burdened with the tag of "Everyman", but he works hard to make both the positive and negative attributes of that archetype come alive, even in his voice work. Allen has the easier - or is it harder? - task of making his voice sound as ridiculously well chiseled as Mr. Lightyear's chin. Beyond confident but increasingly humanized, he finds a way to invest a little humbleness behind his words and not sound simply like Tim Taylor in a spaceman casing.

It is not an easy thing for me to say if I like Toy Story 2 more than or less than Toy Story. Kim Hollis' AFInity column on Toy Story does an excellent job of appreciating that film, particularly in regards to the technology, which has never been my forte. I recommend reading that as well. For my part, I enjoy getting to spend more time with characters I love who - most important to note - are evolving and becoming different, gaining deeper shadings and more detailed strokes. If Toy Story 2 has a weakness, it comes in making Prospector Pete into a last-minute villain and in the form of the overly extended and frenetic climax. The faux video game antics at the beginning were more than enough and it seems redundant if not a little lazy to have continuous action unfold on an elevator, at the airport and aboard a plane. But these are minor quibbles. If, as John Lasseter offers in the DVD introduction to Toy Story 2, they made the film simply because they wanted to find a home for the character of Wheezy the Penguin, well, many sequels have taken flight for far less nobler reasons.

Next time: an early Halloween double shot of horror-themed Chapter Twos. One is the decidedly non-scary sequel to one of the all time great B movies. The other is the much-reviled decades late follow up to a landmark of 1970s scares.

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