It's not really Pixar anymore

Rating: Null/10 (13 July 2011)

Cars 2 looks amazing. The sets are just breathtaking, with views from Japan, Italy and England. The animators had fun adding little details that mirror the world of Cars in real places of the world; for example, instead of Big Ben, you have Big Bentley. Clever.
Lots of action, races, gadgets, etc. But..... where is the heart? Pixar has always treated us to stories that placed the characters and the relationships at the centre of the story, without compromising on the action and the humour. Here, the concept is interesting - spy cars, with all the gadgets you can imagine, and races around the world - but it's more a pretext than a real story.
I remember reading somewhere, back in the good old days of independent Pixar, that they were never going to make sequels just for the sake of sequels. Toys Story 2 and 3 were excellent sequels, with enough meat to be real movies in themselves, so in this way, we can't consider them just mere "sequels". Cars 2, on the contrary, feels exactly like the kind of sequel that you make when you have great characters that are going to sell a lot of movie-related stuff - toy cars, lunch bags, pj's for little boys and all that crap. The characters are half developed, a lot more caricatured than what Pixar has ever used us to. The heart of the story - which would be Mater feeling like he is not accepted the way he is I guess - is very superficially treated; in the end, we never really cared.
All that being said, it's still better than a whole lot of stupid animated movies that movie studios churn out every year. But it's not Pixar anymore.
I felt sad as I walked out; Pixar is finally bowing down to almighty Disney.