Formula One

Rating: 7/10 (24 June 2011)

If you mentally switch out the vehicles in Cars with post-human description of entire cyborg societies where the beings can constantly update themselves and switch out their own body's mechanics, Cars is kinda trippy.
If you do that with Cars 2, you'll completely lose your mind and probably get paranoia-laced nightmares for weeks.
It's not just that the characters have personalities of their own and even things like empathy, friendship, and ego that is the problem. It's the fact that they're self-aware of damage and get to choose whether to keep it or leave it while blowing each other up to smithereens, over issues like self-recognition.
In other words, it's a really good movie. A few random people here and there wondered about "how the world was supposed to work" in Cars, and it seems like Pixar responded by giving them the finger. It's not that they have that in mind while they're making it--Pixar probably meets criticism with a shrug of, "Yeah but our movies make millions and are children's fantasies with actual stories, so we'll just go about doing our work and you can deal." However the point I'm making here is that though the more open theme of environmentalism is going to be the one getting the most press, the subtheme of identity politics is what drives this movie (pun intended), and that makes it closer to The Incredibles 2 than any of their other works, really.
However, I'm hoping that their two summers in a row of sequels is just a temporary aside while they pull together their plans for more original characters, because though their narratives aren't suffering, characters like Lightning McQueen and Mater can get to be a little insufferable. This movie is better than its original but I'm still thirsty for more.
Cheers, --PolarisDiB