Ok, so I’ve never seen the first one. Honestly, I never had much interest. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the sequel, but I do love a good kids movie, so I thought I would give it a shot.
In Cars 2, the main car, Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), is being challenged by a Formula One car, Francesco Bernoulli (John Turturro), and he must race him in the World Grand Prix. His best friend, Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), gets mistaken for a secret agent and gets caught up in a conspiracy involving the race.
The race is sponsored by an alternative fuel company and I was quite hopeful of the subject matter, but it barely scratches the surface. The story is SO simple and I had it figured out within 5 minutes. That would be fine if there were something to keep me entertained along the way. It was trying to hit on the notes of friendship, but that also felt very forced and dumb.
The animation was so….childish? I mean, Rango was AWFUL, but at least the animation was fantastic. This seemed just like they were phoning it in. It felt like a direct-to-DVD movie that they knew they could release in 3D and get tons of money out of.
There were also things that just seemed to be geared towards adults, but just didn’t quite work. The wasabi for instance. Do children know what wasabi is? Hell, I didn’t know what it was until a few years ago. From this they’ll think it’s pistachio ice cream. I just felt like everything was really dumbed down.
John Lasseter, the director of lots of GREAT Pixar films such as Toy Story 1 & 2, really doesn’t do anything special this time around. The best part was the short film, Hawaiian Vacation, featuring the Toy Story cast shown before the feature began. I laughed more during the short film than during the entire feature after it.
People will take their kids. The kids will barely pay attention and love it. The adults will groan and annoy other people as they text during the movie.
Rating: Although it didn’t wow me, it wasn’t terrible. 4/10
Recent Comments