Why "Toys" Deserved An Oscar, Goddammit

You always hear it in conversation: “Man, that film was so good it deserved an Oscar!” And yet so few films fit into that vaunted category. I recently revisited an old favorite of mine about which I often say this — “Dammit, this movie deserved an Oscar, for Christ’s Sake!” And the movie that probably provides the proof in the pudding on that sentiment is none other than Barry Levinson’s Toys, starring Robin Williams, Joan Cusack, LL Cool J, and Michael Gambon, directed by Barry Levinson and released at the worst possible time it could’ve been: The early 1990’s.

If you’ll recall, early in the 90’s. irony and cynicism were big in culture; it simply wasn’t chic or hip to not have some snarky remark handy about some rather ho-hum artifact of sentimentalism or some similar expression of the unironic and the genuine. Indeed, genuineness was looked down on in the 1990’s, as were things like unadulterated joy, deeply-ridden passion, and absurdism. Perhaps that’s why Meat Loaf’s seminal Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell didn’t fare well with audiences of the 1990’s either; it was simply too warm, too cozy with its own sentimental nostalgia for a time that ever really existed, and too loud and, as today’s kids might say, a little too “extra.” Toys is very similar. It’s a very loud statement that in 1992, pretty much summed up the direction our culture was headed in, and director Barry Levinson (obviously) did not approve much.

Toys though remains an intricate, vastly underrated, and obsessively passionate expression of all the things that the pop culture of 1992 stood against: Unironic love and joy; commentary without snark, meant wholeheartedly; and the expression of joy in its purest form. While Seinfeld and The Simpsons were busy making haughty remarks about the emptiness of things, Toys stood apart, and perhaps even defined its own genre of film. As the film’s tagline says, “Laughter is a state of mind,” and there’s a good reason it says that — not only because it’s true, but because it is reflected in every aspect of the film’s execution: From the slinky that springs down the stairs from Kenneth Zevo’s office door, or Robin Williams in his “smoking jacket,” or “body and sound coat,” to Michael Gambon’s tour de force acting job as the villain, Leeland the Lieutenant General whose own father turns on a tiny light that shines on his “four stars,” compared to Leeland’s three. Toys is a movie that wasn’t popular because it had something to say, some statements to make about our cultural landscape, and some of those things reveal the culture of the 1990’s to be harsh, obtuse, hard-headed, and above all, depressing. Toys on the other hand is a joyous marvel to behold, a visual spectacle, and a lot of brute-force acting talent thrown at a simple concept: What would a man, tired of the military’s expensive and size, do with a toy factory whose main line consists of characters like “Milton the Friendly Elephant.” Filled with Robin Williams’ standard ad-libbed lines and the hilarious—though varied—reactions from his peers, you have to wonder if Barry Levinson was just as bonkers as his main character at the time . . . and damn proud of it, too.

The movie opens with the whimsical Kenneth Zeno, the president of Zevo Toys, making a plea to his military-clad brother, the always-serious grouch of a General, Leeland Zevo. Kenneth is dying, and implores his commando-clad brother to abandon the military and take over the Presidency of Zevo Toys, though he insists that his son Leslie Zevo (played as rather larger-than-life man-child), and his daughter Alsatia (played by Joan Cusack, whose performance — the more you think about it after watching the film — is so subtly inspired it’s not to be believed). Leeland assents, Kenneth dies — and at his own funeral has a “Barrel of Laughs” planted in. his coffin to lighten the dour mood — and then Leeland takes over. Owen Owens (remember the old guy from Hook, another Williams production, who “lost his marbles?”), Kenneth’s long-time assistant, takes the General on a whirlwind tour of the factory . . . during which he poo-poos the doogie-doo tests in the novelty items review conference, remarks that Alsatia is a “loony bird” (who wears clip on clothing and doll-things to work as the designs the company’s dolls), and whereupon Leeland has a heart-to-heart talk with his father (the guy who likes to “rub it in” that Leeland only has three stars to his four), in which he reveals a hint of things to come: He believes the military has gone to pot now and declares, “Communism just went into the toilet and the whole damn budget fell out of the military” (a slight commentary on the politics of the day), and so thus wants to use Zevo Toys as his method of reinvigorating the militarism and nationalism of the United States: He will use the whimsical factory as a means to manufacture war toys and sell them to kids. Helping him in his endeavor — as well as bringing a whole new definition to the idea of “1984”-like security measures — is his son Patrick, played by LL Cool J (who is surprisingly versatile, witty, and whose performance is pretty committed to his character arc), who like his father believes that war toys are the future.

But while Alsatia chooses to remain above it all and simply snack on her mayonnaise-and-vitamin-pill sandwiches (while she lurks in the ladies room singing horribly to herself, because of the “good acoustics” in there). Leslie — Robin Williams — takes a darker view of the General and his ambitions. “Dad always believed that war was the domain of the small penis,” he remarks at the dinner table with Leeland. Yet he malleably goes along with the General’s plans to turn his father’s factory built on the foundation of “may joy and innocence prevail” into a paramilitary exercise not unlike something out of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, (and that is not an understatement; one can easily see Gilliam snickering with glee while the members of Patrick’s security forces march up and down the green-hillocky hallway shouting “Hoo-ha . . . ! Hoo-ha!”).

Leslie meanwhile begins to fall deeply in love with — and the feeling is mutual from the start — Gwen Tyler (played by Robin Wright back when she was much younger), the slightly-bimboish secretary who loves Leslie’s sense of absurdist humor and even accompanies Alsatia on one of her singing expeditions in the ladies’ room. Gwen loves Leslie’s dedication to love, fun, and his belief in his father’s maxim of “squeezable fun for everyone.” But she frowns on the fact that he won’t stand up to General Leeland, who day by day is turning the once-Wonka-like factory into a militaristic junta filled with kids who play violent video games as beta-testers and cybernetic biomechanoid “sea swine” creatures. For that is Leeland’s plan: He wants to replace our “outdated” and expensive military with a smaller, cheaper one: Toys armed with deadly fighting capability, powered and piloted by children who think they’re just playing a video game. Needless to say, it is at this juncture that we must pause and reflect: How the hell — in 1992! — did Barry Levinson envision (a) violent first-person shooter and flight-simulation software, (b) the rise of the violent video game, © the military using such games for recruitment purposes, and of course, (d) the now-culturally-ingrained idea of the “military drone”: Indeed a remote controlled — as if through a video game — army of “military toys armed with deadly fighting capability?” How? How did he manage to pull that off in 1992, when video games still looked like Leslie’s “crap in a can,” and the military was building bigger and more expensive weapons than ever. Indeed it is a mystery how Levinson could be so far-sighted, and pack into this movie a gut-punch to the jingoistic, cynical military mindset, and make a comment on old war dogs never giving up the fight, no matter who it was with, too?

Needless to say the General’s plans run afoul of Patrick discovering that his girlfriend Debbie has been cheating on him — with his father! — (“Debbie . . . Debbie . . . you didn’t do my dad, did ya?”) and that is what finally pushes him over the mutinous ledge and causes him to join forces with Leslie, Alsatia, Gwen, and Owens, in taking down the General’s war-machine with an all-out-assault. The struggle is a grim one, portrayed sort of for laughs but never letting us forget what we are watching: Toys made for innocence and fun being blown to bits by military toys armed with very real — and very deadly — weapons. In the end, though — after a triumphant Leslie shouts, while banging the General’s head into the wing of a toy plane: “I! Will! Not! Let! You! Destroy! Dad’s! Dream!” — the evil military toys are taken out by their own design flaws, and the General is forced to concede the fight. The film ends with a repeat of Tchiacovski’s “Winter Revelries” starring a cavalcade of children and the older, more durable playtoys that Zevo used to manufacture before the General’s arrival. And, a rousing chorus of the most beautiful, heart-wrenching — and purely secular! — Christmas carols I’ve ever heard, called “The Closing of the Year.” It’s sung by Barry Levinson’s talented daughters, Wendy and Lisa, with guest vocals by Seal.

Bottom-line: This is a balls-out hilarious, often-beguiling, often-prescient exercise in absurdist fantasy, directed with whimsy, vim, and vigor by its visionary (though some might say slightly demented) helmsman, Barry Levinson. And it remains a classic cult film today, even though it boggles my mind how it hasn’t been remastered and redistributed, even on its 30th anniversary in the politically-divided (just like Leslie and Leeland) Christmas season of 2022. Were I on the committee (and we’re all pretty much agreed that it’s a good thing I’m not; I’d have nominated Zack Snyder’s wonderful cut of Justice League over every other movie this year, as an example of the mischief I’d be up to were I one of those vaunted chairpeople), then I would recommend that the entire board of cinematic governors give Toys a second look — and a second chance — to be recognized for its visual splendor, its visionary (and, as remarked, prescient) view of the present, and its plain-old, laugh-out-loud hysterics. It’s a good piece of cinema (and, it’s family friendly, too; how many deep, thoughtful meditations on war and peace can claim that?), and it’s a helluva lot of fun to watch . . . if not only for the jokes and the whimsical, Tim-Burton-like visuals, then for the straight-faced, unironic, and sentimental performances by Williams, LL Cool J, and Joan Cusack. Rent it or buy it today if you can. It’s a classic in the classical sense: It’s a transformative work that changes our perceptions of what it means to be a soldier, or a conscientious protestor, or a side-character in a world torn apart by war . . . and united in laughter; which in the end proves the film’s tagline worth its weight: “Laughter is a state of mind.” Toys folks. Toys. While it’s still available to rent or own, see it tonight (with your kids, if you have them), and enjoy the wondrous world that Barry Levinson took ten years and $50 million (in 1990’s dollars) to bring to the big screen for all to enjoy.