I did not like this movie.not like this movie.
How’s that for blunt? “Cars 3,” the latest offering from Pixar/Disney, pushes none of the right “hot buttons” that its original did for its pre-teen target audience.
In fact, this retread (pardon the pun) is more a meandering soap opera for 30-somethings who just got rejected at an all-night bar and ended up eating day-old warm apple pie at a diner from a waitress named “Peggy.” Yes, “Cars 3” is THAT bad.
Of course, on hand are the standard Pixar “Cars” family which attempt to console the now aged and time-worn “Lightning McQueen” voiced by Owen Wilson. Here is the official synopsis: “Blindsided by a new generation of blazing-fast cars, the legendary Lighting McQueen finds himself pushed out of the sport that he loves.
Hoping to get back in the game, he turns to Cruz Ramirez, an eager young technician who has her own plans for winning.
With inspiration from the Fabulous Hudson Hornet and a few unexpected turns, No. 95 prepares to compete on Piston Cup Racing’s biggest stage.”
Ah… no.
That is not what happens in this movie and a shining example of why you need to stay far away from PR charlatans who write this dribble.
In the film’s opening, McQueen just gets hammered by the new kid on the block, Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer) and just didn’t lose but flips a dozen times and is literally crushed. How bad?
Finish drinking your soda pop from the aluminum can. Go ahead.
Now crush it in your hands, then drop it on the ground and stomp all over it.
That is what happens to the once-famed Lighting McQueen.
Peeled off the race track like a sheet of used aluminum foil, the rest of “Cars 3” deals with the coming senility of McQueen and his inability to accept what life has given him and just … move along into the sunset.
Instead, he rents himself out as a marketing object to a multi-millionaire, Sterling (Nathan Fillion), to mooch money off his once shining racing reputation.
There he is paired with — what adults would understand as a “handler” — but in “Cars 3” is a “Project Manager” named Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo), a one-time racing wannabe who was verbally abused as a child — just what you would call a young adult in the “Cars World” I have no idea — and ends up at the film’s closing to save the day.
Boy, isn’t that an original plot line! And this is a movie for little kids?
Racist and bigoted references are everywhere in “Cars 3,” not just demeaning to women (Ramirez) but in his own comeback attempt which fails miserably, a la “Rocky,” McQueen ends up in a mud pit race track somewhere in America’s south — presumably Georgia with stupid, hick and over the top dimwits.
Another face palm about rural America — good people who are ignorant and stupid. In his solo directorial debut, Brian Fee, who had been in the art department as a storyboard artist of “Cars 2,” “Wall-E” and the original “Cars,” should have stayed at his desk and not have ventured out except for an occasional lunch.
His approach to “Cars 3” dates back to TV’s “Golden Age” in which human actors spent the entire hour looking longingly at each other across a crowded room, trying to convince themselves that they still have value in this world.
Children, of whom “Cars 3” is created, will understand none of this — but the teenage set will.
How is the cartoon animation? Brilliant. And the voice acting?
Superb. But just as Marvel Studios does with his litany of comic book movies, a movie focus has to be 100% story-driven and not about special effects.
This is where “Cars 3” crashes and burns. Perhaps the only thing socially responsible that Fee and his numerous writers (there were six credited in total) concocted was the verbal tribute to long-passed Academy Award–winning actor and humanitarian, Paul Newman as Doc Hudson, McQueen’s mentor from the first “Cars” film in 2006.
Newman passed away in in 2008 but his taped vocal performance still belongs the folks at Pixar/Disney to use anyway they see fit. Throughout “Cars 3,” McQueen is constantly asking himself, “what would Doc do?”
It’s a bit tedious but a lovely tribute to Newman, one of Hollywood’s very best actors. Aging is not something that children or teenagers think about.
Why should they? But to the rest of us, Lightning McQueen’s fall from the pinnacle of “Mount Olympus” is tough to watch and his dismal attempt at a “comeback” is equally futile. Beware, Dear Reader, as the “politically correct” police out in force in this movie.
Parents, take care!
All of the glitzy pre-movie opening advertising that Pixar/Disney has been pumping into the brains of your children is not what happens in this movie.
“Cars 3” is NOT “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” with singing, dancing and jumping but a very dirty, gritty and bewildering film to explain to your young clan. Don’t give Pixar/Disney the satisfaction of watching this 102-minute commercial for their merchandise.
Instead, grab an old copy of the original “Cars” which had Newman at his later-years best. Watching it at home, you and your children can talk about what it is like to be young, to grow old and savor every moment of life’s best.
You will find none of that in “Cars 3,” a cynical exploitation of the original film a decade ago.
Questions, comments or travel suggestions, write me at [email protected].
