Review of Cars 3 (2017) by Rsaurusrex — 20 Oct 2017

A huge disappointment. The trailers really looked awesome and like the movie would be about Lightning McQueen making a triumphant comeback after suffering a huge loss. But no..... The movie starts out with 10 year racing veteran McQueen at the top of his game and having fun. Then come in all the more technologicaly advanced cars who go 210+ mph and everyone but McQueen goes into retirement or is fired, and he has a huge crash from pushing himself too hard. It then cuts to him back home and nothing of his crash or trauma are mention again. Encourage by his girlfriend to get back out there, Lightning goes to retrain at the training center of his new boss. Now Stirling was an interesting character but not really used much other than as a sort of antagonist who was more interested in money than taking care of Lightning himself or racing. Lightning gets this new trainer, Cruz, who is supposed to be able to get athletes into proper racing form but she spends more time making fun of Lightning for being over 30 and old, like a lot, embarrassing him or treating him like a grandpa. Seriously, she never listens to him or ask him if he’s happy she just annoys him. Frustration leads Lightning to mess up a racing simulator and having to make a deal to stay in the racing game if he wins a big race in a few weeks time. So he goes to train outdoors because y’know over 30’s don’t like technology and stuff. But he has to take Cruz with him and here it becomes obvious that she really is just nothing more than a fitness coach because she is hopeless out side and can’t race. So Lightning has to waste time training her because cruz is the 20 something year old who only works with tech and the outside is a foreign, scary place for her.

This goes on for a bit, Lightning looking after Cruz and she in no way helps him train or anything for his big race. A few days away from it we learn that oh no she wanted to be a racer but was to afraid to be one and wimped out. It’s here we’re supposed to feel sorry for her but I didn’t. At all. She doesn’t seem to realise that this means a lot to Lightning, it’s his life and income but no, her failure as a racer is what’s going to be important.

Lightning then goes to the home of his old mentors teacher, and him and all the old cars from the 1940’s to 1950’s also make fun of Lightning and call him old, excessively. They try to train lightning but it’s clear by now that the focus of the movie is Cruz and her life not Lightning making a come back as the trailers portrayed. Lightning goes to his race and out of the 43 racers he’s the last. He still makes it to number 14 in the 250th lap (there’s 500) but quits mid race to let Cruz have a shot at being a racer and start her career. It feels cheap. The ending was a huge disappointment and some people got up and left the cinema around me. I mean the jokes were bad, the movie was Ames’s of plots and characters and it all feels forced. Cruz feels like a cheap knockoff McQueen who never really works for her racing career, she has to be given it whilst all the other cars worked for it. She can do things no one else can with little training and taking over from some one half way through a race is cheating. Yes you can switch drivers in a race but the car is the same. This is more like if a runner switched with another to finish a race whilst all the other runners had to do the full thing. She’s not a good character for girls or women empowerment by being annoying, half-assed at her job, or having to get her career given to her because she can’t work for it herself. There is some hope though as Lightning said he would continue racing after he trained Cruz for the season so maybe, just maybe we will get to see Lightning be a champion like Pixar are always telling us he is. It would be nice to see him work through a movie, fight for his place at the top and win, spectaculary. This is something he has never done in any of the movies. He either gives it up to be kind or give someone something ( this plot is used here like in the first movie, so it’s got rehashed plot lines) or mater was the main lead. Pixar show us champion Lightning. He’s been nice, a good friend and nice again. Show us this winner you keep telling us about. That would be a really good movie unlike this one.