Review of Cars 3 (2017) by Carlotta 4 — 28 Nov 2017

Was Cars 3 better than Cars 2? ...yeah. But believe it or not 2 has more rewatchability as a generic action flick (annoying Mater and all). Cars 3 is trying so hard to be SERIOUS, but it's hard to get behind that seriousness.

This is one of those "old man in a young man's world" films (which frankly comes out of nowhere given that McQueen looks exactly the same and still feels incredibly young. But whatever, he's "old" now, I guess). So instead of having to learn the young man's game and adapt his tactics to deal with a modern society he's instead focusing on racing against cows and ON SAND (there is no sand on a racetrack!) The whole movie I was thinking "what the heck are you doing?! You're wasting your time, go back to the center and learn how to use the stinking computer!" But no, apparently the moral of the film is that lightning CAN still race if he wanted to but instead chooses to hand over the torch and teach the next generation instead. Alrighty then!--except we just saw him falling behind in that race and he only handed off the torch when it seemed like he would lose otherwise? The film completely undermines it's own point, Lightning WAS outdated and he DID give up, were we supposed to be motivated by this? This movie confuses me on so many levels.

The last scene of the movie says it best for me. Lightning is now painted blue and wearing a headset as an old fogie teaching the younger generation. It just feels so completely wrong for his character and this series. I wish he'd gone back to that darn computer and actually learned something instead.