Review of Cars 3 (2017) by Matt C — 07 Aug 2017

When the first Cars came out, I was the target demographic. As an almost-ten-year-old boy in June 2006, I saw the movie with my parents opening night and, given my impressionability, thought that it was colorful and entertaining.

Honestly, I don't remember much of anything about it. I was surprised when they made Cars 2 and I was kind of surprised by how bad it was. The idea that Pixar even bothered to squeeze out another installment after another six years for the sake of reinstating the ubiquity of the franchise's merchandise is sad but logical.

Other than profit, is there any reason this movie should exist? It's all so hollow and perfunctory, its antagonist being essentially nonexistent and its arcs being empty because the previous films didn't succeed in terms of storytelling enough to fill one movie well, much less three.

There's-ahem-nothing under its shiny, shiny hood. The movie follows Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), now an aging race car, whose mortality proves to get in the way of his career and ego. Falling under the shadow of a rookie named Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer) and attempting to beat him, McQueen gets into a crash and is sent to practice with Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo).

.. and that's about it. It's like a training montage with some extraneous scenes that clocks in at almost two hours for some reason, and to be frank, it's boring. I struggled to stay awake at several points, which isn't that surprising since Cars 3 is often on autopilot (or cruise control).

The positives arise not from good decisions, per se, but from the avoidance of bad decisions. There's substantially less of Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) than the predecessor contained and it at least has semblance of a thematic through line.

But again, it's so dragged out and empty as a whole. I actually didn't mind the first 20 minutes or so, as the movie managed to treat the material with an honesty that didn't try to undercut it for its target audience, which is by and large pre-adolescent.

It's what comes after that that's so lame, with the movie making no attempt in terms of writing. Storm, the ostensible main antagonist, is defined solely by his dark design and some verbally conveyed exposition on his high-tech, high-speed gadgetry.

Ramirez, who has almost no backstory other than her character traits relative to McQueen, becomes oddly important as the film progresses, but her existence is almost never earned and is topped off with a totally obligatory change of heart in its characters.

It's a waxy, tasteless maraschino cherry on top of a fake sundae that's put on display to look at but never eat. The movie's sentimentality often leans on its gall to dig up and rely on Paul Newman's memory, which often times acts as the crux of the themes in Cars 3.

It's lazy in that Kiel Murray, Bob Peterson, and Mike Rich's script doesn't try to establish emotional depth but instead say, "Remember how sad you were when Paul Newman died?", and it's also kind of sleazy.

By the time the climactic race occurs, the movie has officially been running on fumes for over an hour and the sparkly visuals don't have the cadence of storytelling or developed character arcs. The final scene, in which the franchise's attempt at coming full circle is executed with such sigh-inducing obviousness, even has a character jeer, "Oh, subtle," which was pretty much my reaction to most of Cars 3.

There's also a part in which Lightning McQueen sees how other characters have tried to exploit his success into a barrage of nic-nacs and goods that can be sold en masse. McQueen seems shocked that he's nothing more than a commodity to those around him, but ironically, it happens to be the most substantial moment in the film.

Yes, McQueen, you only exist to sell bedsheets and toys to little kids. That's your reason for being, and it's increasingly inconsequential. 4.1/10, bad, D+, definitely below average, etc.