11 Hits, and Finally a Miss

Rating: 4/10 (24 June 2011)

Cars 2 (1:46, G, Imax, 3-D) — other: talking animals, biggie, sequel
I would like you to stop for a moment and reflect on the wonders Pixar has given us thru the years: A Bug's Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALLE, the beloved Toy Story trilogy, and of course Up, the 1st 7 minutes of which are worth the entirety of most animated features. Every one a winner. My least favorite of their offerings was Cars, and even there they proved that they could take the unlikeliest of protagonists (egotistical race car Lightning McQueen) and make it almost as endearing as an ant, a big furry blue closet monster, a gourmet rat, a voiceless mobile trash compactor, and a clownfish with a withered fin.
There's never been any question about the incredibly high technical quality of Pixar's animation, but more than that they never lost sight of the fact that the story came first, and that's what's made them the most revered name in animation.
So let's remember all the gratitude we owe them for 25 years of excellence as we stay away from the regrettable Cars sequel in droves.
This film is loaded with way too many vehicles going way too fast to keep track of, way too often. Not as loud as Transformers, not as disjointed as Speed Racer, these are nonetheless only faint mitigations for an over-emphasis on short-attention-span theater. Flash, dash, and smash is a video game, not a story line.
Not that there isn't plenty of off-racetrack plot. Way too much, in fact, far too complicated, and presented much too hastily and sketchily. It mainly involves James Bondian spy games concerning peak oil and corporate corruption. Believe me, I am totally the target audience for that kind of message, but even I found it uncomfortably preachy.
Top billing in the movie deservedly goes to Larry the Cable Guy, as rustbucket (but nonetheless Lightning's best friend) wrecking truck Tow Mater, a buffoonish hick who was used lightly as comic relief in the 1st film but is determinedly thrust into the forefront here by storytellers who figure they've always won in the past by betting on losers, outsiders, and the downtrodden. It's worked before, but not this time. Shtick like Mater's is a garnish, here served up as a main course, a banquet of parsley.
Try as they might, the animators just can't overcome the fact that cars don't really have either expressions or hands. Here the story (screenplay by Ben Queen from a story by Dan Fogelman and co-directors John Lasseter and Brad Lewis) requires extensive use of both, and it just comes off forced and fakey.
Y'know, if you were hitting .917 in the major leagues, you'd be the greatest player of all time by a gargantuan margin. Let's not forget that as we note sadly that even geniuses can't hit a home run every single at-bat.