For some lore on this review series
And agian we are back with a movie installment in the Pixar Cars Franchise. A Franchise and a world I really don’t get. Like the are cars but with same rules as people. Are they born? Are they made? Is gas sustenance or alcohol?
It almost seems maddening that the movie doesn’t want you, the viewer, to ask those type of world-building questions because it exists as “fun family movie” with talking cars that go fast.
Any is Cars 3 Good? Is it better than Cars 2? Is it better than Cars 1?
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Back to Form
The general consciousness online is that yes, Cars 3 is better than Cars 2. Cars 2 was weird entry into the franchise as it’s was more of spin-off than a sequel. In some ways it was more audacious than Cars 3 as it did try to be play with genre in the franchise. I got the impression that it was more experiment, testing what they could do with characters in the world but it didn’t work so they went back to Lightning McQueen and racing as the focus.
Plot a Go-Go
So Cars 3 is back to being about racing and Lightning McQueen being a racer. This time however he is not the new hot rookie, he’s old with everyone around him asking when he going to retire following a racing accident when he couldn’t keep up with the newer racers.
Most of this movie is Lightning training to be faster but he is met with friction from his trainer Cruz Ramirez who also wanted to be a racer but wasn’t confident enough. In training him with his unorthodox method Cruz also acquires a lot of the pro-racing skills.
It all comes to ahead when if Lightning can’t win the first race of the season then he will retire and became a “brand” to sell stuff. Disney/Pixar you’re not fooling anyone at this point with the whole ‘sell-out” vs “integrity” but whatever.
In the end Lightning and Cruz learn how to race smarter from Doc’s Hudson’s mentor and as team sharing the same number. They both win the race as a team so that Lightning doesn’t have to retire until he’s ready and Cruz is the pro-racer she always dreamed.
Training Vs Parts?
Due the fact that Cars 2 felt more like a spin-off movie about one of Mater’s tall tales it unclear how much of that movie should be read a canon.
Either you do and have to forget that Mater was given enhancements to make him faster than Lightning in that movie. Or you forget that movie which makes it feel very jarring to have Lightning going from a rookie to an “aging” racer. Or maybe it’s both and it’s illegal for racing car to get upgrade unless they are built that way? Seems odd if one gave it any thought but the movie never stated that Lightning couldn’t get new parts or upgrades?
There is a logic that cars do age but they is no really real logic to this world other than cars are basically people. The idea is that they every living is now some for of machinery which is why trackers are bovines and bugs in the first one but no Cars 3 has crabs and they are animals not mechanical in any way.
Final Thoughts
The issue with this movie is that is more of less very similar to the first Cars movie. Lightning has to learns aspect of racing that doesn’t involve speed from the previous generation. The add-in is that Lightning is also being the old guard of racer and making way for a new enthusiastic young racer.
Maybe it a me issue because I don’t gravitate toward “sport movies’ and I’ve never one for sports so this wasn’t as engaging a premise for me as it might be for some people. But also I didn’t find this movie particularly funny or all that engaging.
So Cars 3 not among my top favorite of Pixar.
It’s too bad the Pixar didn’t play more with genre, we could had a racing/mob movie starting Guido and Luigi, love those guys. Guess will have to wait for the premise with Gatto but with less racing and more cats. Gatto is more already up my alley than some other Pixar titles.
