Review: CARS 3

CARS 3
(ANIMATION/FAMILY-ADVENTURE)
★★1/2
Directed by Brian Fee
Screenplay by Kiel Murray, Bob Peterson and Mike Rich
Story by Brian Fee, Ben Queen and Eyal Podell & Jonathan E. Stewart
Featuring the Voices of: Owen Wilson, Cristela Alonzo, Chris Cooper, Nathan Fillion, Larry the Cable Guy, Armie Hammer, Ray Magliozzi, Tom Magliozzi, Tony Shalhoub, Bonnie Hunt, Lea DeLaria, Kerry Washington, Bob Costas, Margo Martindale, Darrell Waltrip, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Bob Peterson, Paul Newman
Rated G
Verdict: The Cars series is mollified and more mature in its third chapter, but mostly, it's 'fine'.
YOU MAY ENJOY CARS 3 IF YOU LIKED:
CARS  (2006)
CARS 2  (2011)
FINDING DORY  (2016)
MONSTERS UNIVERSITY  (2013)
TOY STORY 3  (2010)

It's the Pixar sequel that nobody asked for, but there was no way we weren't going to get it anyway.  At least it's better than CARS 2, but that's not an especially high bar.  There's this thing about Pixar and critics where, they've had such an unparalleled strong run from TOY STORY in 1995 and to TOY STORY 3 in 2010, and 9 classics and near-classics in between (actually, A BUG'S LIFE isn't that great), that they have a ton of built-up good will, and even if Pixar does make a stinker, a lot of critics will give it a pass.  The usual justification is that "even Pixar's worst movie is better than most other studios' best movies", which isn't technically true (although you could say that Pixar's best movies are a lot better than those other studios' best movies), and even with CARS 2, most of them had to admit it.  It's the only Pixar production to date to not receive a majority of positive reviews on the popular review aggregating site, Rotten Tomatoes.  Even the original CARS is a significant deep downward on the scale within the Pixar streak.  The thing is, I used to roll my eyes at critics who gave a movie like CARS a half-hearted positive review because it was supposedly better than what other animation studios were churning out, but in an age where the cheap, shitty schlockmeisters at Illumination Entertainment are hauling in billion-dollar grosses, I'll throw my hat into the ring for CARS 3.

CARS 3 returns to the inexplicable, constantly-question-raising Cars world a substantial amount of years after CARS 2.  Introducing some confusing notions of how long a car's lifespan is and when they hit old age, Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) is getting older, and the racetrack that he once dominated alongside his peers is growing unfamiliar, with newer, faster, souped-up racers taking the lead.  At the front of the new pack is the arrogant Jackson Storm (voiced by Armie Hammer), whose top speed outpaces Lightning at his best, and when Lightning suffers a devastating crash (probably the most brutal cartoon car wreck in history), it leaves the question open as to whether he'll return to the track at all.  With his sponsor, Rust-eze, bought up by an elitist business car, Sterling (voiced by Nathan Fillion), who aims to capitalize on Lightning's highly merchandisable legacy (not sure how we're supposed to feel about this in what's pretty much a toy commercial for the Disney Company), Lightning is paired up Cruz Ramirez (voiced by Cristela Alonzo), a peppy young racing technician who's got all the gadgets.  When the tech route doesn't seem to be working, however, and Lightning wants to get back in touch with the basics, they seek out Doc Hudson's mentor, the legendary crew chief Smokey (voiced by Chris Cooper).

One point that must be made; while the Cars universe becomes hilariously difficult to reckon with when you look at it with a wide view (Where do baby cars come from?  Are they made in a factory or do the cars sexually reproduce?  Is this supposed to take place in some version of our world?  Where are the humans?  Is this some sort of dystopian future where mankind has died out and our machine took over?), most of that stuff technically doesn't matter for the movie to work, and maybe it can all just exist strictly on an imaginary plane of existence.  CARS 3 makes at least one of those 'how do cars' lives work' questions immediately relevant though, because the way older race cars age out and have to retire is at the center of this story and doesn't make sense.  Some people will wonder, 'Where are is this younger generation of cars suddenly coming from?' and it's a legitimate question, but I can let that go.  However, one thing we know about the 'senior citizen' cars in this world is that they leak oil, which is akin to incontinence here, but rustiness seems to factor in too.  The rustiest major character in this series though is Mater, and it's not at all clear if there's a significant age difference between him and Lightning.  Plus, they can apparently repair crash damage and paint themselves over, so maybe rust is mostly a class thing or a matter of pride for individualistic cars.  But they can keep replacing parts and polishing themselves up forever, it seems, so they're potentially immortal, right?  They can be murdered or presumably die in a particularly violent accident, as clearly shown in CARS 2, but they shouldn't be able to die of old age, right?  Except that with the death of his voice, Paul Newman, in between films, Doc Hudson (who appears in flashback scenes of CARS 3, utilizing previously unused recordings and some imitation voicework) died in between the first and second films, presumably from old age.  But in CARS 3, we meet Doc's trainer and a whole assortment of cars from a whole generation before Doc, and they're all alive and kicking.  None of this makes sense, so it's tough to understand Lightning McQueen's part of all this within the racing world, that he can be past his prime, even though he'll still be driving his top speed generations later down the road.  Why would anyone ever have to retire?  Why can't he get new parts to make himself as fast as these new cars?  Don't tell me I'm overthinking it, maybe you're underthinking it.

The thing about this Cars series is, I can really just sit back and enjoy watching those cartoon cars driving around.  All inside the computer, you can get up close and they move alone so smoothly through Pixar's always richly detailed landscapes, and you get the sound of the rubber tires gripping and scraping little pebbles along the asphalt.  Yeah, a lot of movies have cars in them, and when you're just listening to the sound and watching the movement of the tires, it's a little bit hypnotic.  I don't know why.  Personally, I know dick about actual cars, like, I'm no gearhead, but I like watching them move around in these movies.  But then there's the cartoon "squash-and-stretch", and then they start talking, and it's this whole world filled with sentient cars that seem to be made of metal but move like rubber, and they have their big windshield eyes and mouths with teeth, and you start freaking out and wondering "What the hell is going on here?! "  No, but seriously, it feels kind of juvenile.  It seems funny, because we're talking about a studio that churns out movies about toys coming to life when people aren't looking, a world of friendly monsters who are scared of children, talking fish and so on, and sure, we'll plop our kids in front of them, but we're just as likely to watch them ourselves.  They don't feel childish.  The Cars series kind of does.  It's not as bad as the Despicable Me movies, but not everything is, you know?  I'm not sure I'd say CARS 3 is better than the first one, mainly because the story doesn't come together as neatly (to be fair, the first CARS straight-up ripped its story from DOC HOLLYWOOD), but CARS 3 is probably the most "mature" of the series.  They're trying to do the TOY STORY 3 thing, with a story about nostalgia and passing the torch, but clearly not on the same level nor with the same strength going in. 

After the headache-inducing frenzy of CARS 2, the third chapter is significantly mollified and even reflective, although there's still the intermittent goofy slapstick mayhem that kids expect, such as an iffy demolition derby sequence or a montage of Lightning's disastrous training attempts.  There's less plot this time around than the other two, and it takes its time on Lightning's journey of self-rediscovery before sort of abruptly rushing to get things in position for the finish line.  It hints at payoffs more than it sets them up, and a lot of the stuff involving Smokey and his crew of veteran racers is undercooked and not as well tied into the story as Pixar would have done in their prime.  It has a few funny moments, and as you'd expect from the studio that's being doing computer-animated feature films the longest, their visual craft is richer and more lush than anyone else in the game, which then reminds how prevalent the corner-cutting in Illumination's movies is.  Pixar and Disney, man, they're the only ones who care to make their computer animation look half-decent.  It's nothing special, but it looks nice, and hey, it could be worse (see CARS 2).  There's less of Mater this time too, so that's obviously a plus (even though he's in it more than you'd expect from his overall absence from the marketing).  Mostly though, I just like to watch the cartoon cars driving around.

                                                                                                                                                                         Images via Disney