the Cars 2 (U.)
Directed by John Lasseter, Brad Lewis.
Starring Larry the Cable Guy, Owen Wilson, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Eddie Izzard and John Turturro. 112 mins.
As a sequel to a film that wasn’t all that great in the first place Cars 2 is a let down: as this year’s Pixar film it is a heartbreaking disappointment. After Wall-e, Up and Toy Story 3 we are accustomed to the summer Pixar film being one of the very best of the year. Expect grown men to be spotted leaving cinemas with the same look of sad eyed betrayal not seen since Indiana Jones and the Crystal Maze.
The Hangover II summoned in the summer of old fashioned bad sequels by being a virtual remake of the first. Cars II adopts two different Traditional Bad Sequel strategies. No 1 is taking the characters from the original and placing them in a new, exaggeratedly dramatic context. (Cars 2 is very similar to the typical seventies British TV spin off movie, i.e. George and Mildred Movie which sent them off on holiday and had them outwitting hitmen or Are You Being Served which sent them on holiday and placed the staff of Grace Brothers in the middle of a revolution.)
When the film opens with Bond parody Finn McMissile (Caine) on a dangerous mission infiltrating a secret oil platform, your instinct is that this will turn out to be a film within a film opening and that we will cut to Lightening McQueen (Wilson) and his other four wheeled friends sitting in the audience eating popcorn. Sadly not.
Traditional Bad Sequel strategy No 2 is over inflating a popular support character. Now McQueen has to play second fiddle to Tow Mater (the Cable Guy) the uncouth, country hick who is McQueen’s best friend and also by far the most irritating and unentertaining character Pixar have ever come up with. Giving this slack jaw yokel the lead is like sidelining Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me for the tiresome Redneck sheriff character who appeared in Live and Let Die and Man With The Golden Gun.
Why Cars 2? Well as anyone who’s paid out for Lightening McQueen lunchbox knows, although the original film wasn’t only routinely successful in the cinemas, the DVD and merchandise has been enormously successful. But it is also because Pixar supremo Lasseter really likes this world. Look at the beautiful detail with which his team have recreated cities like Tokyo and London - Cars 2 is like a grown man inviting everybody round to his shed to see his massive, intricate train set.
After an unprecedented run of brilliance Cars 2 is Pixar letting a little air out of the balloon, starting a process of readjusting our expectations. Cars 2 is drab all round: the support film is a Toy Story short which is great fun but a bit mundane compared to the wonderful bold and innovative shorts that have accompanied recent releases. The trailer for next year’s Pixar film Brave, a Scottish set mythical sword based adventure had the child in front of me in tears. In 2013 there’s a Monsters Inc sequel so it could be some time until a Pixar film amazes us again
Directed by John Lasseter, Brad Lewis.
Starring Larry the Cable Guy, Owen Wilson, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Eddie Izzard and John Turturro. 112 mins.
As a sequel to a film that wasn’t all that great in the first place Cars 2 is a let down: as this year’s Pixar film it is a heartbreaking disappointment. After Wall-e, Up and Toy Story 3 we are accustomed to the summer Pixar film being one of the very best of the year. Expect grown men to be spotted leaving cinemas with the same look of sad eyed betrayal not seen since Indiana Jones and the Crystal Maze.
The Hangover II summoned in the summer of old fashioned bad sequels by being a virtual remake of the first. Cars II adopts two different Traditional Bad Sequel strategies. No 1 is taking the characters from the original and placing them in a new, exaggeratedly dramatic context. (Cars 2 is very similar to the typical seventies British TV spin off movie, i.e. George and Mildred Movie which sent them off on holiday and had them outwitting hitmen or Are You Being Served which sent them on holiday and placed the staff of Grace Brothers in the middle of a revolution.)
When the film opens with Bond parody Finn McMissile (Caine) on a dangerous mission infiltrating a secret oil platform, your instinct is that this will turn out to be a film within a film opening and that we will cut to Lightening McQueen (Wilson) and his other four wheeled friends sitting in the audience eating popcorn. Sadly not.
Traditional Bad Sequel strategy No 2 is over inflating a popular support character. Now McQueen has to play second fiddle to Tow Mater (the Cable Guy) the uncouth, country hick who is McQueen’s best friend and also by far the most irritating and unentertaining character Pixar have ever come up with. Giving this slack jaw yokel the lead is like sidelining Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me for the tiresome Redneck sheriff character who appeared in Live and Let Die and Man With The Golden Gun.
Why Cars 2? Well as anyone who’s paid out for Lightening McQueen lunchbox knows, although the original film wasn’t only routinely successful in the cinemas, the DVD and merchandise has been enormously successful. But it is also because Pixar supremo Lasseter really likes this world. Look at the beautiful detail with which his team have recreated cities like Tokyo and London - Cars 2 is like a grown man inviting everybody round to his shed to see his massive, intricate train set.
After an unprecedented run of brilliance Cars 2 is Pixar letting a little air out of the balloon, starting a process of readjusting our expectations. Cars 2 is drab all round: the support film is a Toy Story short which is great fun but a bit mundane compared to the wonderful bold and innovative shorts that have accompanied recent releases. The trailer for next year’s Pixar film Brave, a Scottish set mythical sword based adventure had the child in front of me in tears. In 2013 there’s a Monsters Inc sequel so it could be some time until a Pixar film amazes us again
