REVIEW: Cars 2 Is The Worst Thing Ever

Having grown up with Disney and Pixar-- from Jungle Book and Fantasia to Wall-e and Toy Story 3-- I've come to realize that their “worst” films are still great; bad for Pixar isn't necessarily bad at all. The Princess and the Frog was one of was one of Disney's least grossing films and yet, it still garnered an Academy Award nomination. Their idea of “unsuccessful” is walking away without an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. But...every once in a while (well, actually just once) there's a flick that tarnishes the incredibly talented studio's prestigious name. This is one of those movies we pretend doesn't exist, like the Star Wars Holiday Special or the forth Indiana Jones thing. I'm talking about Cars 2.



If only.

The first thing that dinged it was its inability to stand on its own, something that any kid's film needs to do. All three Toy Storys can be seen out of order with no problem (unless you're so one of those people who actually cared about Bo Peep) and any of the nitpicks you think of will be totally overlooked by your little kid. And if he is old enough to notice them and still hasn't seen Toy Story 1, then...really?


Your family's home, evidently. There's a TV in mine, though.

But that's not the main problem-- far from it, in fact. Return of the Jedi was the least accessible to newbies, regardless of the text opening, and it was still okay (although I could have done without the space Muppets.) But still, in order for me to explain the biggest fault, let me set the tone:


Exactly as it happened, in my mind. 

I regularly babysit my cousin, a three-year old girl we'll call Amy. She absolutely loves anything from Disney and she practically flipped (no, seriously) upon the mention of a sequel to her current favorite movie (poor, misguided child), and I practically flipped at a possibility to escape a one-thousandth viewing of Monty Python and the Quest for the Holly Grail-- you can learn to hate anything after seeing it twenty times. So we decide to go see the second Cars movie, and I will admit to being a little excited. Cars was a solid film with likeable characters and a charming world with plenty of observational humor; “Hey, they're cars. How delightfully zany. Let's sell millions and millions of plastic replicas of Owen Wilson's car face.” It wasn't so tongue-in-cheek that it annoyed you, yet it still made use of the fact that you're watching an animated flick about talking automobiles. Well, very quickly I realize (again) what happens when I get excited about a movie.

Among the many things that were absent from this impossibly fucked “film,” the very concept of the movie was one of them. Okay-- so for those of you who have regular life priorities and never saw Cars, the whole story revolves around the fact that they are, indeed, cars. There it was, plain and simple. But in Cars 2, at no point do they even reference the fact that they are cars. It's as if everybody in Pixar's writing room completely skipped over the first page of the script! It is literally the most generic spy flick ever, with all of the characters replaced by glossy sports cars and a single retarded pickup truck. There's even a fight scene in a bathroom-- like the opening of Casino Royale-- where there is actually a fistfight between two cars; “wheel-on-wheel action,” if you will (but, like, don't.) The whole movie seems to have forgotten its own fucking title. Also, that brawl in the bathroom? It ends with the other car being killed, left in a slowly expanding pool of motor oil-blood. Seriously.

Not Pictured: Smiling children

I can put up with the paper-thin writing and the classic regrettable sequel feeling, but the level of appalling implied-violence in this movie surprised me and, honestly, made me a little worried concerned for the impressionable three-year old giggling in the seat next to me. I mean, I'm a very jaded individual, having grown watching SciFi (or “SyFy” if you have no frontal lobe) and having seen my first R-rated flick (The Terminator) at age 7. But for a Disney-Pixar project, even one death is shocking, especially when conducted in such a cold manner as it was in Cars 2.

Puberty

But once I finished distracting me cousin from the scene with talk of post-movie McDonald's or something (another thing you shouldn't ever expose your child to), I started to see the laughable, in-your-face political views that made the whole shitstorm feel more like a commercial about how “big oil is bad” hosted by Larry the Cable Guy rather than what it was: A truly lackluster sequel. Wall-e and Toy Story 2 executed their subtle political messages masterfully, whereas Cars throws more than it should at its (supposed) captive audience: Kids. So, in closing, if you see anyone with this DVD in their collection, duck. They're behind you with an ax.



"I see you've also got Premonition and-- hurk!"