Critics criticized, but for the wrong reasons.

Rating: 5/10 (27 June 2011)

. It's not often that I get to see a movie on opening weekend, so I thought I would write something about it, since many of the critics on Rotten Tomatoes seem to just not get it. Some say the plot was hard to follow, it was not. Some were Southern-phobics, who had problems with Mater, I do not. Some said that they did not like the first "Cars", and that just rips away any credibility that they might have had with me.
The original "Cars" was awesome. It was a parody of ourselves using something we love the most--cars. The story was basically the same as the old Michael J. Fox flick "Doc Hollywood", but the jokes, the music and the artful animation still made it a great movie. Unfortunately, "Cars 2" , in comparison, only has the artful animation.
Most Pixar flicks have some movie or genre of movies in which they take their underlying style. For example, "A Bug's Life" uses "The Magnificent Seven", "Up" uses "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", and "The Incredibles" take a A LOT from the Sean Connery James Bond movies. Unfortunately, they must not have gotten enough out of James Bond, because they resort much of this with "Cars 2", and the attempt is far less subtle and creative. This also contradicts all the effort made to relate personally to the cars in the previous film.
Imagine if a movie like "Cowboy vs. Aliens" was the sequel to "Dances With Wolves". It just wouldn't work. "Cars" parodied much of everyday life and "Cars 2" just turned it all into an action movie and the filmmakers should have known better! It also seems that the effort was not all there for this one either. "Cars" had some great gags and visuals placed during musical numbers throughout the film. "Cars 2" only had one of these numbers and it was pretty lame. It was song originally performed by the Cars and it wasn't even sung by them. There was very little to laugh at.
The story in itself was not too bad, but the moral in it was the weakest that Pixar has presented and still was not that different from "The Incredibles".
There was also fairly obvious scenes that were in there to boost toy sales. The product placement for State Farm was atrocious. Since when does the might Pixar have to rely on product placement? Pitiful! Finally, it's rated G, but IMO, it should really be PG. Yeah, the violence is just cars against cars, but cars are personified and killing them by blowing them up or hitting them with a death ray can still be intense.
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