Ladies and Gentlemen, whether you like it or not, the Pixar Playlist
And oh boy, we're at Cars 2
Pixar have had a long of run of financial and critically successful movies, their critical success would come to an end with this film, and it wouldn’t nearly strike the level of financial success of the last 2 films, despite the $200m budget. Let’s not be coy about it though, it probably still made a killing in merchandise sales, hence the existence of another sequel and various shorts and spin-offs.
So, why is this one so despised? Let’s take a look.
Some years after the events of the first movie, Lightning McQueen is at the top of his game and heads to radiator springs for some R&R and some alone time with his girlfriend and best friend Mater, *sigh*, but through a series of events, McQueen is entered into a worldwide race to showcase a new alternative fuel called Allinol, Mater comes with him but ends up crossing paths with spy caper with Agents Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) and Holly Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer), believing him to be a secret agent also, they begin investigating a conspiracy which is having a major impact on the race.
Yes, I did just say spy caper, what the f*ck?! There are so many reasons why all of this kinda falls apart, but I will try and be positive for a moment. As a fun kid’s film, it’s perfectly serviceable, it’s got some entertaining action and humour that will keep your young children engaged and the animation is still of great quality, utilising the extra money to give us more varied locations and action bits.
OK, I think I’m out of positives to say. Let’s start the negatives with Mater, I don’t know if Disney had learned the lessons of their dvd sequels because even in more recent years they’re still doing this but no-one wants comic relief characters as the central focus of the film. Mater is a comic relief character; he exists to make stupid remarks and witty observations to alleviate tension. He was never designed to have serious or interesting character arcs so putting him front and centre was an obvious mistake.
Given his design, he’s probably not the most toyetic of the cast either, Olaf had at least that going for him. So, what’s his journey here? His idiotic tendencies tend to screw things over for the people around him, and it leads to a blowout between him and Lightning McQueen. And somehow this is Lightning’s fault? I get that not every situation that occurs here is Mater’s fault but sometimes fault is irrelevant, sometimes it’s necessary to realise that your actions are making things worse and either look to change or step back. It’s okay to be the guy who screws up all the time is not a good moral.
OK, let’s move onto plot as there’s a surprising amount of that in this film. The original Cars was very light when it came to story, it was a backdrop to service for a character study. But with the advantages of extra money, they decided to put the story front and centre, the problem is that the story is stupid and makes no sense.
So, the dastardly plan to use a camera to send out an EMP to blow up cars in the race to make Allinol look bad was orchestrated by the guy who invented Allinol because… What? He’s sitting on a stockpile of oil and wants to make alternative energy look bad, sending a rush back to oil, but he’s not making alternative energy look bad, he’s making his specific alternative fuel look bad. The rush to alternative fuels is driven by a realisation that they’re hurting the planet and that oil supplies won’t last, none of which has changed. (Incidentally, there were dinosaurs in the Cars universe?)
The other angle is the Lemons aspect, ie cars that are notoriously unreliable being the main henchmen, this seems like something that could backfire quite easily. I swear to god this movie didn’t even use the obvious ‘if life gives you lemons’ gag.
Michael Caine’s performance is flat and boring but it’s not like they gave him much to work with, beyond a scene where he realises he’d unintentionally been a bit of a dick to Mater, calling him an idiot, believing that was his cover. Speaking of stupid, how did neither of the two agents work out that Mater wasn’t an agent, he gave some pretty solid hints.
So the racing angle, which, now it isn’t the key conflict, feels more like a distraction from the exciting stuff, this is one place I feel is weaker than the first movie when it comes to animation, it feel’s more run of the mill racing as opposed to the first one that gave you a better sense of momentum and speed. Lightning is not entirely absent from the proceedings, but spends most of the run time exchanging banter with his racing rival Francesco Bernoulli. *Yawn*
Cars 2 is a film very squarely aimed at young children, they will find the action and excitement an upgrade from the first film. Everyone else though is in for a disappointment as our connection to the action is Mater, Lightning McQueen is side-lined and the racing itself made boring and we see the gigantic holes in the plot.
#1 The Incredibles
#2 Up
#3 Finding Nemo
#4 Toy Story 3
#5 WALL-E
#6 Toy Story 2
#7 Toy Story
#8 Monsters Inc
#9 Ratatouille
#10 Cars
#11 Cars 2
#12 A Bug’s Life
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