The fifth episode of the Toy Story franchise is as slick and smooth as you like, as glitchless as Toy Story 6 or Toy Story 7 might be … or will be. As a piece of family-entertainment content it has the unblemished sheen of a brand new smartphone. But at heart, it has gone dead. For all the intensive, high-energy creative work that has clearly gone into this film’s every frame, the jeopardy, the novelty, the ideas and the passion are lacking; the crucial Toy Story theme of mortality feels underpowered, and the film even calamitously loses its nerve with its own big idea – those squeamish about spoilers had better look away now – the sinister way addictive tech devices are undermining the imaginative play that kids once had with honest-to-goodness toys.

Here a creepy tablet device called Lilypad (voiced by Greta Lee) enters the children’s world, but ultimately proves to be capable of sentimental self-sacrificial heroism when it comes to their mental health. Really? At least Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear, the villain from TS3, had the courage of his evil convictions.

We are back in the world of toys and their secret existences, hilariously leading independent lives when the kids aren’t looking: Jessie the cowgirl (Joan Cusack) still belongs to the kid called Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) from the fourth movie with a bunch of other toys including stalwart Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), the astronaut who is sheepishly in love with Jessie. Meanwhile, Buzz’s legendary TS co-star, cowboy Woody (Tom Hanks) – whose one-time rivalrous pairing with Buzz was rooted in the now pretty much forgotten fact that sci-fi stories replaced westerns in US pop culture – is living away from them in a kind of feral outdoor existence away from human control with some other toys, romantically paired with Bo Peep (Annie Potts). These days Woody has a bald patch and a growing paunch, human fallibilities which mysteriously don’t affect Buzz or Jessie.