Reviewing - The Cars Collection
Does this franchise deserve a cinematic trilogy? Definitely not. But it’s also one of the few franchises whose third film is the best of the bunch by a significant margin. He may not be a favourite of the critics, but Lightning McQueen has made Pixar a Piston Cup-load of money. Black sheep or not, he’s an irreplaceable part of the Pixar family. Those short films really stink, though.
Cars (***)
In which cars have tongues and we’re all supposed to be okay with that
Although Cars revved up one of Pixar’s most profitable franchises, it’s nothing more or less than okay.
This film was to John Lasseter what Treasure Planet was to Ron Clements & John Musker. In both cases, you had a director who had proven his mettle a few times before. This director had had a dream for years, but it had never been the right time for it. Lasseter was and is an avid car fan, and after churning out a series of mega-hits, he finally got the chance to make a movie all about them. Luckily for Lasseter, his flick performed immeasurably better than Clements and Musker’s Treasure Planet. Cars really does seem to be an ode to the automobile in every sense of the word. We see all kinds of vehicles personified, and the world of racecars is front and center. There’s car drivers and car enthusiasts making cameos here and there, and a big chunk of the film’s heart has to do with a love of the open road. For car lovers, I can imagine this being an instant hit.
Unfortunately, I’ve never really cared much for cars.
Everyone’s got their thing, and I respect that. I don’t want to knock car enthusiasts any more than I want them to knock my love for classic literature. All I’m saying is that this movie isn’t exactly up my alley. If the story were phenomenal, I think I’d be swayed a bit further. But there’s nothing that new about the story – especially when you compare it to the brilliantly original scripts from Toy Story, Monsters Inc, or The Incredibles. A snobby city kid learns that there’s more to life than the fast lane. I’ve seen this story before.
That said, that doesn’t make this a bad movie. The animation is great, and the story is competently executed. The characters are also pretty fun, which is a staple by now of Pixar films. Kids all over the place loved this flick, and with all the bajillions of dollars they made in merchandising and toy cars, it’s no wonder this film got two sequels and a whole bunch of short films to boot.
Oh, and I’ve gotta give them points for delivering us Rascal Flatt’s awesome cover of “Life Is A Highway”. What a song.
Mater and the Ghostlight (**)
This franchise’s preoccupation with Mater really weighed it down. Maybe the focus groups said Mater would perform really well with kids – and maybe he did. But as a grown-up, he’s insufferable. And as it stands, Mater is the star of virtually every single Cars short. As such, I’m just not wasting my time by watching them all. This film was an official short released with the DVD release of the first Cars feature, so I gave it a go. Then I reviewed two more shorts to make it an uneven three. I’m not doing more than that.
My feelings about these shorts were proven right away with this short. It’s really just Mater being Mater. There’s nothing that teaches us anything new, and it’s not really funny either. It’s just Mater being spooked by a scary story. I didn’t laugh – I didn’t smile. Unless you’re a die-hard Mater fan, this isn’t worth its seven minute runtime.
Tokyo Mater (**)
Is this where they got the idea for Cars 2? Because in many ways it feels like the same premise – just crammed into a much more appropriate runtime. Mater’s in Japan, and he finds himself with some tricked-out upgrades in the race of his life. I was not excited, entertained, or interested. Why did I waste my time with these in the first place?
UFM: Unidentified Flying Mater (**)
And now Mater is busting an alien car – why is that a thing? – out of Area 51. Gosh, these were boring as heck. You’re wasting your time just listening to me talk about how I wasted my time. This doesn’t deserve half the attention I’m giving it right now. Do you want to talk about something else? I’m watching Loki right now – that’s immeasurably more interesting than this. Maybe we should talk about Loki. Literally anything else would be fine. You pick. Please. Just stop reading this and end my suffering. Go away. Leave me be!
Cars 2 (*1/2)
In which cars go to the bathroom and eat wasabi now and we're all supposed to be okay with that
Watching this right after Toy Story 3 was like licking dirt after a three-course steak dinner.
Cars 2 earned over 500 million dollars. That’s admittedly 100 million more than the first film, but at the time in terms of box office numbers it came in 7th out of the 12 films they’d made so far. Further, Cars 2 was significantly more expensive to make than the first movie, which means that Pixar only really made an extra profit of about 20 million over the predecessor. I don’t mean to say that Cars 2 didn’t make money – it definitely did. But the hurt that it caused to Pixar’s reputation really puts all that money into perspective. The first Cars had done decently as far as the critics were concerned, but there was no doubt that it was the worst Pixar film to date (all three Cars films are still Pixar’s three lowest ranked films on Rotten Tomatoes). If any of their films DIDN’T deserve a sequel, it was Cars.
But John Lasseter was still the man behind the wheel – and to his credit, he’d been a huge part of Pixar’s success up to this point. Cars 2 was the fifth Pixar film he’d directed, with Toy Story 1 and 2 being some of the others. Cars had been a bit of a passion project for him, so I’m not surprised that he managed to convince the team to continue building the franchise. What IS surprising is how unambitious and uncreative Cars 2 ended up being. Pixar’s formula for success is pairing two unlikely companions amidst a wondrous and imaginative world (think Buzz and Woody, Mike and Sully, Marlin and Dory, Wall-e and Eve, etc.). The first Cars followed that strategy with Mater & McQueen, but this film kept the two characters apart for a significant chunk of time. Sure, a big part of the plot had to do with Mater’s antics stressing McQueen out, but the focus was definitely more on Mater’s inadvertent entry into the world of automotive espionage. And speaking of focus, Lightning McQueen really took a backseat in this ride. He was the star of the previous film – and here, all he did was race around a little bit before declaring his brotherly love for Mater at the end of the movie. Why are we putting him front and center on the movie poster if he’s not the main character? This is a borderline spinoff film.
I said that this film was unambitious, and here’s what I mean by that. This film didn’t push our characters or the world they inhabited in exciting new directions. Toy Story 2, for example, put the single most important relationships of the original to the test. At the same time, it delved deep into themes of abandonment and neglect that the original had touched on. A sequel is supposed to push boundaries set by the first film. This felt almost more like the kickoff TV film for an upcoming series about Mater travelling the globe. Lightning didn’t grow as a character – and neither did Mater, really. We just got a lot of Mater being culturally unaware over and over again.
The one thing that this film did give me a lot of was questions. So cars eat ice cream now? And they go to the bathroom? And they breathe?! In Toy Story 2 when Woody’s arm ripped, we all had a moment of “Oh shoot, yeah, that happens to toys.” But here, we just see more and more cars not being tied down to any discernible rules of existence whatsoever. Do cars have parents in this world? It’s clear that different cars have different manufacturers, but are do the manufacturers create life, or just accessories? How many pieces of a car can you replace before it’s no longer the same car? Doc Hudson apparently died – but what does that mean? How do cars die? Can a car come back from the dead? I may be digging too deep – but when the rules of the world aren’t clear, it’s hard to do otherwise.
The Cars trilogy, for all the money it’s made Pixar, is the black mark on its otherwise nearly spotless record of hits. This sequel is uninspired, doesn’t take narrative risks, doesn’t stretch or grow our leads, and it doesn’t even feature Lightning McQueen all that much. Imagine if Toy Story 2 was about Buzz in a new home with new toys. It’s a waste of all the characters and relationships that the original built. Skip this as fast as you can.
Cars 3 (***1/2)
In which we’re reminded that cars can die in this world even though the franchise itself won’t
For a film that didn’t deserve to be put into production, Cars 3 ended up being the best film in the franchise.
One of the first things I looked up after watching this film was how it got produced. John Lasseter, with his next-level love of cars, was obviously responsible for the first two flicks. But with the negative taste that Cars 2 left in many people’s mouths, I thought that no one else would be able to get a third film off the ground apart from their top dog gunning for it. But as it turned out, I couldn’t find Lasseter’s name on this film anywhere apart from his credit billing as executive producer – which can mean next to nothing. Stan Lee was “executive producer” for many MCU films, but I have no doubt he wasn’t at a single storyboarding meeting for any of them. What I’d love to know is how this movie got greenlit, and how John Lasseter didn’t end up being a part of it. I have a hard time believing that Lasseter wasn’t interested, and I’m really curious to know the reasons that the director Brian Fee wanted to hop on to this franchise.
Well, for whatever reason, Cars 3 got the green light, and here we are. And to be honest, it’s surprisingly good. There’s a few key reasons for this – first and foremost, the emphasis has been brought back to Lightning McQueen. The detour with Mater in Cars 2 was a train wreck, so getting the franchise back to its roots was a good call. Secondly, the animation is (as always) top notch. There are a number of shots that are really just beautiful. But most importantly, we have a compelling story at the heart of this film, and it all starts with one key question.
What happens when Lightning McQueen isn’t the best anymore?
The first film showed us McQueen as the top up-and-comer, and Cars 2 had him on top of his game. We’ve seen McQueen at his best, so it made perfect sense to give us a McQueen that was coming to terms with loss and his own fallibility. The crash sequence early on in the film was just terrific – it’s no wonder that they made it a key moment in the trailers leading up to the film’s release. Everyone loves an underdog, and making McQueen a little over-the-hill was exactly what this franchise needed to make us root for him again.
And on that note, I love how they decided to end this film. Cars 3 would’ve been unremarkable if it had just been about Lightning McQueen proving that “he’s still got it”. Instead, it became a movie about training up the next generation. McQueen realized the inevitability of the end to his racing days, and decided to use that as fuel to raise up his replacement. He could have raged and resisted and gone out like a candle, but instead he used the strength he had left to light a fresh one. That’s a cool story, regardless of the fact that this is a movie about talking cars.
No matter how good this is, this doesn’t change the sour taste of Cars 1 and 2. But it’s a movie that provides some saving grace for the franchise, and it ensures that the characters kids know and love go out on a high note. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but thank goodness they made a Cars 3.