Movie Review: Cars 2

Cars 2  – (2011) Rated G, 112 Minutes

It’s a hot summer day. The kids are home from school for the summer, and the skies are threatening. How do you kill a couple hours if a bored game <wink> isn’t your thing?

Go to the movies and catch a Disney film! It’s with that simple thought we review the Pixar Animation Studios’ Cars 2.

The Cars franchise got its start in 2006, and the cross merchandising for Cars is significant, with

• Video Games
• Sweepstakes (sponsored by State Farm)
• Chicken
• Kleenex
• 300+ other Products

and more so every youngster is well aware of the movie. No doubt the merchandizing was influenced by the profitability of the first Cars, where the $120M movie grossed $244M in the US and $455M worldwide (IMDbPro).

Cars 2 brings a James Bond theme (including an Aston Martin (Finn McMissile voiced by Michael Caine) to the series. Mater (a Tow Truck voiced by Larry the Cable Guy) gets involved in an international espionage plot to discredit alternative fuels used by race car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) and others in the World Grand Prix race. The villains are all the “lemon” cars of my youth…like the Pacer and Gremlin.

The rather convoluted theme didn’t detract from the enjoyment of the little ones in the theater. They were enjoying the movie like it was the first one they had ever seen (and perhaps it was.) The crowd was clearly made up of youngsters, parents and some teen/babysitters.

As you might expect in a James Bond movie, there are a number of things in the movie surprising us in a G movie. There are lots of guns, bombs, tasering, and one car-beating-up-another-car in the restroom scene. Where the first Cars got its charm from the characters, this one seems to want to crank the violence up a notch. Also, some of the stereotypes were worthy of analysis in a class…for example,  we find it odd (and more than a little disappointing) the “bad guys” are led by Professor Z, a monocle wearing car voiced by an East German born actor, Thomas Kretschmann. We certainly won’t go to the police over this.

Certainly Pixar knows this. John Lasseter (with multiple Pixar titles: Chief Creative Officer, Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios Principal Creative Advisor, Walt Disney Imagineering) directed and co-wrote the film. 

Will Cars 2 go down as one of the best Pixar movies in their 25 year history? No.

Is Cars 2 a movie you’ll bring up “on-demand” years from now? Probably not. Pixar has a reputation of really fabulous films; this one is decent, not fabulous.

Will Cars 2 open June 24 and beat out for the weekend’s box office? Yes.

Will Cars 2 be a movie where you can escape a summer thunderstorm with the kids? Yes.

Cars 2  gets a

       Green Light – Go and enjoy

About the RAG scale:

       Green Light – Go and enjoy

       Amber Light – Use caution

       Red Light – Save your time and money

The Author

Gary Kelley has lived in Westborough since 1994. His reviews are what he would tell friends, and are not an academic analysis.