Silly, very silly

Rating: 5/10 (11 November 2011)

The original 'Cars' was okay. An innovative, fresh, humorous and peculiar approach on an animated movie. Although with flaws, at least it had some soul and character.
This one? No way! Let me start by saying that the animation is excellent combined with even more complex and "ambitious" scenarios than the original's (more light and more color too) but both the plot and the humor fail miserably.
One of the many problems of this movie is the fact that it takes place in many countries. Stories set in several places around the world just don't work (see the case of "Love Actually"!). I gotta admit, there are awesome sceneries of Japan and Italy, but in London they made the Big Ben look so phony. I wonder if they did that intentionally? Perhaps. Being a sequel, logic isn't the 1st, 2nd, not even 22nd priority.
Unlike the original, Mater is the leading character. The film is practically about him. Mater was funny in the original. Here he tries too hard to be funny and as a consequence he becomes too clownish, even irritating.
It was actually hilarious when Mater ate that icecream and urgently needed to drink water because it was too spicy for him. Anyway, the "joke" of Mater going to the bathroom and afterwards farting was too much. Mater is even confounded with an international spy, for dang sake!
They attempted to repeat some of the jokes from the first movie, but none of them worked the way they did in the first one: the famous "ka-chow" line and the joke of the tractors, for instance.
Doc Hudson is missing, perhaps because Paul Newman has passed. They mentioned Doc Hudson, but the way they were referring to him makes one think he probably died - either that or else he migrated.