I don't know where to start...

Rating: 3/10 (19 November 2011)

I can't believe I'm saying this about a Pixar film, but "Cars 2" is a monumental waste of talent and technology. And what concerns me most is that what this movie gets wrong is the most important thing Pixar has always gotten right.
The storytelling is a massive letdown, for a few reasons. The first is that I think they tried to stretch the anthropomorphism of the cars too far; in an early suspense scene secret agent Finn McMissile (voiced by Michael Caine) sneaks around on an oil platform in ways that make him seem well-nigh invincible, and another character who arrives later is able to sprout wings and fly... Why would a car want to roll when it could fly, anyway? The espionage angle didn't have to fall flat (and I actually really liked the way McMissile was executed as a character), but it took these characters to a place they really didn't seem to belong, a fairly brutal murder just being one instance. We also learn somewhat more about the toilet habits of cars here, which starts to beg the question of how they fulfil other biological needs. In the first movie we didn't even START to go there, and I'm not sure it was a great creative decision here.
The characters are flat, which is an unusual Pixar failing, too. There is a cardboard kind of friendship between Lightning McQueen and sidekick Tow Mater that seems mailed in from a '70s after-school special, and verges on creepy. Poor 'Mater is the subject of a great many jokes, few of which are really terribly funny.
The "new-enviro-fuel-threatened-by-evil-big-oil" is okay, if a little over-simplified, and I "got" the film's notion that it's the "lemons" of the world who hold us back, but I was a bit conflicted over the ending (and, yes, the SPOILER ALERT goes here). Sir Miles Axelrod (Eddie Izzard) is an older Range Rover oil baron who has supposedly seen the light and converted to greener technology, though in the end he turns out to be the mastermind working to discredit his own alternative fuel, as he has since found a massive sub-ocean oil deposit. On one hand, this twist seemed to discredit the notion of alternative fuel entirely, but I also have to admit that such corporate "greenwashing" actually exists. Frankly, "Monsters, Inc." had a similar message, but it was much clearer there.
Story and character are pretty important, and Cars 2 fails miserably on both counts. Technically? Well, that's a brighter side there, as everything LOOKS fantastic. And I'll confess that I enjoyed many, MANY in-jokes. The movie is FILLED with Easter eggs for both car nuts and Pixar fans.
One of the best little "inside baseball" moments came when an American agent who had infiltrated the bad guys disguised as an old Gremlin took off his disguise to reveal himself as a new Dodge Challenger; Chrysler bought AMC back in the 80s, and this scene almost seemed a symbol of its renewal. Unfortunately, this and many other moments suggest that Pixar may have worked fairly closely with Chrysler in a rather subversive form of product placement. A race that takes place in a very Monaco-like locale was actually moved to Italy, I suspect as an excuse to feature many Fiat models; Fiat, of course, now owns Chrysler.
Clever in-jokes can't be the basis for a movie on their own. Particularly when many of them seem to be motivated by marketing. Even that MIGHT have been forgivable with decent characters and story. Lacking these, "Cars 2" is Pixar's first unqualified failure.