Speed. I Was Speed. - A Review of Cars 3

I recently watched Cars 3 for the first time, having never seen it in theaters. I wrote down a couple impressions I got out of the movie and wanted to share. Please remember: This is only my opinion, and it is most likely different from yours. I would love to discuss any questions, comments, or further points in the comments or on social media (linked at the bottom of this piece), but please discuss respectfully.

Well, with that out of the way, let’s begin.

Expectations Vs. Rewards

Cars 3 was probably the Pixar film I was least anticipating, and one of the last ones I honestly expected to see, both in terms of viewing it myself or actually seeing it produced. I will admit that there are some Pixar movies I still haven’t seen, those being Brave, Good Dinosaur, and up until a few days ago, Cars 3. I had a 4K copy of the movie, wanted to see how the best animation in the business looked in that quality, and wanted a harmless watch, so Cars 3 is what I settled on. Otherwise, to be completely honest, I wouldn’t have watched it. As for production, it made sense from a business standpoint. Cars and its associated franchises (Planes, Mater’s Tall Tales, toys and merchandising, what have you) have raked in billions for Disney/Pixar, and so they capitalized. At the height of the toy sales from the first movie, of which I begrudgingly have a large collection from when I was younger, they made a sequel. A sequel which is commonly regarded as Pixar’s worst movie. I think Cars 2 and the relationship it has/had with its audience plays a big part in Cars 3, and also in how one likes the film.

Let’s get my opinion out of the way. I think this movie is fine. Really nothing astounding one way or the other. And honestly, that’s a bit disappointing. I understand the jump in logic there, so let me explain. Pixar movies, at least to me, are the height of animation, both for technology and storytelling. They pioneered the genre and have constantly redefined what I expect from animated movies. One of my absolute favorite movies of the past year was Coco, but more on that another day. Even at their worst, Pixar movies are at least good. But Cars 3 wasn’t. It was just fine. Nothing about it, neither its story nor visuals nor music, stood out. I’m glad that this seems to be the last in a recent string of Pixar sequels/prequels, which have had an overall noticeable dip in quality. Yeah, Toy Story 3 was great. And you know what, Finding Dory was pretty good too. But are you really gonna look at me and say that it was at the same height as Wall•E? Or Inside Out? I firmly think Pixar is better when they move on from a story and push themselves to create something new. It’s why their shorts have always been incredible, and why these films have been hailed as masterpieces. I won’t stay away from any of these franchises in the future, but some of these sequels have certainly left an unseemly mark on their respective franchises. So Cars 3 just being fine disappoints me, but only because I expect so much from Pixar. Cars 3 isn’t bad, not at all. But it’s not good either.

Cars 2’s Lingering Influence

I mentioned that a lot of Cars 3 hinges on Cars 2, and I think this holds true for a number of reasons. For one, like I said, Cars 2 is probably Pixar’s worst movie, even in their own eyes. It took what the first movie was trying to say, that fame and pride isn’t everything, and then shoved Lightning McQueen into fame and fortune as an excuse to give children more Mater. That’s the biggest signifier that Cars 2 wasn’t for Pixar, or for animation, or even for storytelling, but for the fans. Mater is a great kid’s character. He’s dumb, obnoxious, random, silly, and loving. All the things that made a children’s show character successful. Mater’s Tall Tales were perfect for Disney Channel because they were little bite-sized shorts of the breakout character from the movie. But just like how Bart can’t lead a Simpsons movie on his own, and just like how Urkel couldn’t lead a Family Matters movie on his own, Mater just can’t lead a Cars movie on his own. But Cars 2 did exactly that, and became more of a spy thriller than a character study, which is what Pixar does best in its successful sequels. None of this is new information, but it’s pertinent to Cars 3. Because of the backlash and lack of staying power that Cars 2 had, Cars 3 pretty much ignores everything from that movie. Nothing about the story is mentioned or referred to, Mater is sequestered to a few lines of dialogue and some comic relief (which he is best suited for), and Lightning is again the spotlight character. I believe this is all for the better. Cars 3 feels like the sequel Pixar would have made had Disney not breathed down their neck to capitalize on profitable toys. Cars 2 also defines the movie in a subtler, more emotional way: it changes the paradigm of how Pixar developed its sequels, but in a good way. In a sense, it brings the development more in line with better, more well received Pixar sequels.

Let me explain further. For the sake of discussion, I’m going to define Toy Story 1, 2, and 3 as a successful Pixar movie trilogy. Not only in terms of the success and critical acclaim of the movies, but in terms of the emotional connection it made with fans. Toy Story 1 is a movie marketed towards children. It focuses around toys that come to life, with a positive message about friendship and judgement and yadda yadda yadda insert things that have been said before. Toy Story 2 was about the loss of toys and separation from somebody’s loved ones. I still can’t watch Jesse’s flashback scene without tearing up. The kids who saw Toy Story 1 had grown up to the point where they would still have toys, but may have, sadly, parted ways with a few. It also connected with adults who had painful, deep-seated memories of similar experiences. Toy Story 3 was then focused on these kids who had matured further since the first movie and were now heading off to greener pastures. They didn’t need their toys anymore, and so Toy Story 3 was centered around growing out of needing toys, but still passing them onto newer generations. Cars didn’t grow with its audience.

The first movie arguably was geared towards teenagers who felt like big fish in a little pond and vice versa (feel free to correct me in the comments on this one, it’s been a while since I watched the first Cars). Instead of growing up, Cars 2 skewed much younger, going for the little children who loved the toys so much after the first movie. I think it’s pretty obvious that Pixar didn’t plan on the first movie having the impact that it did because 90% of the Cars toys that you see kids have came out well after the movie was released. Cars 3, instead of focusing on something that either the audience of Cars 1 or Cars 2 could have grown into, focuses on something the adults would relate to. This isn’t an inherently bad thing, but it does show a bit of the disconnect with the movie. Cars 3 focuses on growing old and seeing a newer generation take charge, instead of being that younger generation, like the audience of the first two movies could relate to. You could argue this is what the first Cars was about, but I disagree. I’ll get more into theming in a bit, but for now I’ll say that it seems, at the very least, a bit out of place when you look at the progression of the series as a whole.

So how, after all that, does Cars 2 define Cars 3? And how is that bad? My answer to these questions that I have full control over is that Cars 2 defines Cars 3 both in what the film does and what it doesn’t do, and that lessens Cars 3’s quality because it’s too far of an overcorrection. Cars 2 went too young, and Cars 3 went too old, which ended up harming it. If you liked Cars 2, you might like Cars 3, but if you didn’t like Cars 2, you also might like Cars 3. It does a lot of things differently, but it sometimes does things a little too differently. The downside is that I can say might twice. There’s no real recommendation to give based on your enjoyment (or lack thereof) of either/both of the previous movies. Cars 3 is kind of an enigma. It walks the middle line, but is also completely outside of the box for the series, something that I think the emotional development in the movie illustrates really well.

Flawed Emotions

Cars 3 has a troubled emotional component, and like most of the main points in this article, I mean two things by this. First off, the voice acting is a little thin. Owen Wilson has never been the most emotive of people from his voice. It’s all about his face, mannerisms, and the level of ‘open’ his eyes are as he says a line. That’s all lost here. Even in the first movie though, a lot of that carried through to Lightning. There was care or passion there. In this film, Lightning just seems kind of off. Even in his loudest and most impactful moments (if you can call them that) just feel empty. Owen Wilson sounds like he’s sick of playing this character, and I don’t really blame him. The rest of the actors are fine. Nothing standout good or bad, just fine. It’s the same with the music. Even if you don’t like it, you have to admit that the original Cars had a well-curated soundtrack. Life is a Highway, man! It just fit. The music here feels like it was trying to emulate the original, but didn’t really know exactly how. It’s not bad music per se, but it’s nothing memorable or pointed enough to make an impact.

The larger point I want to make about the emotional component of the movie is a lot deeper than that. A lot of the movie is trying to say something that the plot and/or narrative of the movie don’t adequately address. The focus of the film is fairly obviously Lightning getting old and having to deal with the end of his career. Fine, great, good. But half the movie is about him trying to train for ‘the big race’ that these movies always have in increasingly inefficient ways. Most of the time, it’s fairly predictable to see where these scenes are going. Oh, gosh. Lightning wants to go race on an old track in the middle of nowhere? I bet you that some obstacle is going to get in his way that hampers his improvement rather than help it.

That exact scenario happens about three times.

For example, Lightning meets the secondary lead for the movie, a trainer car named Cruz (Cruise?) at a high-tech facility after Mr. Rich Car №. 3 buys Rust-Eze from two cars who’s names I honestly don’t care to remember. He wants to train on a high-tech racing simulator so he can beat the antagonist, Jackson Storm (nice one, guys) in ‘the big race’. He has to ramp up to this training, not being accustomed to it and all. The next two scenes are him instead doing exactly the opposite of what the trained professional tells him to do and then failing. She tells him to go slowly so that he can ramp up to speed, he goes and races on the beach, shoehorning in some kinda-not-really bonding time for the two that frankly feels a little half-baked. She tells him that he needs to relax and loosen up to improve, he does exactly not that and instead forces his way onto the simulator, which he then destroys because he doesn’t listen to the people who know how to use the thing. The lessons Lightning learned in the first movie were persistence, humility, and being able to listen, and all three of these ideals are eschewed for some jokes about exercise techniques and semi-effective character development.

Lightning begins his relationship (emotionally speaking, not romantically [because he’s still involved with the girl from the first movie, who barely has any screen time and only is really there to remind you she exists]) with Cruz as a push/pull thing. Cruz is very energetic and positive, and Lightning is a curmudgeon, going against what she says and encourages him to do. Cruz is a bit condescending to Lightning because of his age, but I took this to be encouragement rather than bullying or antagonism. When they go to the beach, Lightning ends up teaching Cruz how to drive in the sand. For the movie’s sake, this ties in to the climax when Cruz ends up taking Lightning’s place in ‘the big race’, but the development is out of place. They bond here, however forcibly, but not two scenes later, Lightning is berating Cruz for something that’s his fault, not hers. Lightning wants to go to an old racing track, and leads both him and Cruz into a destruction derby. Because they avoid the other cars, Cruz ends up winning. Then he insults her and yells at her for it being her fault somehow. The progression in Lightning’s emotions doesn’t make sense, and all his anger feels misplaced. If Cruz had suggested going to the beach, or the race track, then it’d be fine. But she didn’t. Then later, they become friends(?) because she wanted to be a racer but couldn’t, and Lightning feels bad for yelling at her. Because his anger felt misplaced in the first place, and none of their bonding felt natural, with the added piece of Lightning shooting down everything Cruz suggests, even though she’s being positive throughout it all, the payoff of the movie, where Cruz gets her big win and Lightning accepts his racing career’s end, feels unearned. It’s not necessarily predictable (even though it’s probably your second guess as to where the plot would go), but does feel manufactured. It feels like a movie conclusion, not the surprising and heartfelt places that Pixar movies usually go. All things considered, it’s a cop out.

In fact, Cars 3 is a series of cop outs.

I’ll name a few of them, going from what I think is least egregious to most egregious. I’ll admit in front of everybody that I know very little about racing. I don’t have much reference for the strategies or the minutiae of the rules. That being said, the racing in this movie seems the least realistic of the trilogy. Some of these cars rubber band harder than a Mario Kart game. Sarcasm aside, I mean that the cars in front will get closer or further away depending on the story, not realistic physics, and that their advantages seem to be there only when it serves the plot, not as a part of their character. Whenever Lightning has a chance at winning but loses, he loses by a large amount, even though he was in first or second before. Next up is Lightning’s training.

The fact that Lightning improves dramatically even though he fails all of his training is one thing. It’s another thing that he asks for the training and then immediately denies any efforts to train. My biggest issue with Lightning’s training is the idiocy of how it comes to be. A plot point in the movie, a very important inciting incident, is that Jackson Storm uses a giant, high-tech simulation and new technology to train and become better than Lightning. The reason I italicize those words is that this one plot point kicks off the rest of the movie, Lightning meeting Cruz, Lightning deciding he’s done with racing, the whole everything. So you think, “oh, Lightning is gonna train and get better with his methods to show that it’s not about technology it’s about spirit blah blah blah,” right? Nope. Lightning just gets access to this equipment because new character that is coincidentally a big Lightning McQueen fan buys the place that sponsored him before. There’s almost no rhyme or reason to it other than Lightning wants simulator, so simulator happens. It’s not minor, and it gets in the way of the plot for me.

But the biggest, most un-Pixar-like, plot hole/cop out/BS development comes in the conclusion. Lightning drops out of ‘the big race’ to let Cruz fulfill her dream and become a real racer. She wins, of course, and you again think, “oh, cool, Lightning is gonna realize that it’s not about winning and he can still get the thrill of victory if he is positive and so on and so forth,” but this doesn’t happen. Oh no no no. Cruz wins and the crowd is going wild, and you see her revel in the crowd. Lightning’s fans all love her, and it’s a celebration for all of Lightning’s team and friends. And then. And then. AND. THEN.

Lightning wins too.

Yeah.

He just wins.

Let me explain why this is infuriating. Lightning spends this whole movie talking about how he decides when he’s done racing. He goes through the experience of getting old and having to deal with a new generation of racers. People objectively better than him. He comes to peace with this notion, however forcefully, and in the climax of the movie gives up his life for a new one. He’s a coach, you can tell that he has a talent for it, and he helps Cruz win the race. It’s almost like in Zoolander where Derek opens a school at the end. You can totally see Lightning buying Rust-eze and training new racers or coaching Cruz as his “big next step,” which would either end the series with room for sequels about Cruz, or at the very least close this chapter of the ‘saga’. He is done racing. He made that decision, like he wanted the entire movie. And then he just wins. Because of some rule that is brought up and passed over like it doesn’t mean anything but it means everything because it changed the outcome of the race. They say that because Lightning began the race, he wins as well. Fine, great, whatever. But that fundamentally changes the emotional aspect of the climax. It means that Lightning doesn’t decide when he’s done because after he’s done, an outside force alters the outcome. It goes against the theme of the entire series, however loosely-defined it may be. To put it more clearly: Lightning winning the race at the end destroys the rest of the movie. It means that his training and relationship with Cruz doesn’t make any net progress other than a new character. It means that the last hour and a half of your life was wasted because the end result is the same thing as if Lightning has just raced himself and ended up winning because he trained to do it.

Cars has always been about Lightning’s relationship with others and with the world, specifically what he learns from these interactions. The first movie was about him falling off of his pedestal and learning humility. It defined and adhered him to the arc he followed as a character. Cars 2, as weak of a movie as it is, was about Lightning learning about teamwork and friendship. His relationship with Mater drove that movie forward and, while it wasn’t great, it kept Lightning in his character role. Cars 3 is supposedly about Lightning learning to let go. It starts off on a good note with his crash in the first race and how he, and everybody else, reacts to it. He spends the rest of the movie coming to terms with letting go and moving on in life. Him winning the race absolutely ruins that, because he’s rewarded for completing his arc in the wrong way. If the movie instead ended with Lightning looking on proudly at Cruz, going on to coach other racers, and later becoming even more famous because of his contributions after his career was over, it would make infinitely more sense. It would even tie into Lightning’s character arc in the movie, as he spends a lot of it in the shadow of Doc Hudson. He’s compared to Doc, he motivates himself by channeling Doc, and many of the locations are places he knows of and respects because of Doc. Him going on to be a coach and teach these techniques to others would bring him even closer to reaching Doc’s legacy. Nope. He just also wins the race. That one shot of his name appearing on the winner’s screen with Cruz singlehandedly ruined the movie for me. In non-Pixar movies, this would be okay. It’s a cop-out, but it’s a means to an end. There isn’t really any staying power with it. The closest Lightning gets to that bar set by Doc is a new paint job at the end of the movie that imitates Doc’s.

Pixar is famous for reinventing storytelling, for subverting expectations in the best ways, and for creating ageless and timeless stories. Everybody remembers the opening of Up. Everybody remembers the space dancing in Wall•E. Everybody remembers the flying in Toy Story. Nobody is going to remember Lightning winning at the end of Cars 3. That’s why it makes me so angry.

Positives

I’ve spent a lot of time here focusing on the plot, emotions, and other aspects of the movie that I have issues with. That’s a lot of negativity, so let me go through some good things about this movie. For one, it’s beautiful. This is certainly one of the nicest looking Pixar movies. The Cars series has always been a great showcase for Pixar’s color palette, with all the shiny, glossy, and gorgeous paints on the cars, as well as the more muted colors of areas like Radiator Springs. The designs of the cars, especially the newer racers and Jackson Storm, are also impeccable. I’m 20 and almost want to go buy some toys from the movie. The animation, like everything Pixar, is also the best in the business. Lightning’s crash at the beginning was legitimately shocking to me. It showed much more than I thought it was going to, and had some very realistic sound design that made that entire sequence feel real. Even with suspension of disbelief, you know that the movie is a cartoon. When the cars drive, it feels like an animation and no matter how perfectly timed the sound effects are, there’s a disconnect between a real driver on a real road and the images on the screen. Not in Lightning’s crash. That scene was harsh. Definitely a high point of the movie. There’s very little one can say about Pixar’s visuals and animation that hasn’t really been said before other than that it’s consistently astounding, and they only go bigger with each movie. Even at their lowest, Pixar makes some beautiful images.

Other than that, I honestly can’t go on much about positives. It makes this review seem one-sided, yes, but that’s because there’s so much to unpack about why some things make this movie disappointing. The positives are gigantic parts of what redeems this movie from being bad because as superficial as they are, they’re brilliant and masterfully done. It does make this review skew very negative, though, so I wanted to address it.

Conclusion

In the end, Cars 3 is a modicum of odd choices and flawed payoffs. If you’re following the series arc of the characters, it doesn’t go where you need it to go, but in a bad way. If you’re following the development of the characters, it doesn’t reward that investment with something that feels worthwhile. Worst of all, in my opinion, if you’re following the lessons the movies have been trying to impart on viewers, it doesn’t go all the way and muddies the message it’s supposedly trying to say.

Cars 3 is not a bad movie. It’s not a good movie either. It’s a fine movie. Something to put on and get through without much harm done. Yet when considering the body of work that Pixar, the leaders of animation and wet dream of every art major in the world, it’s a disappointment. Cars 2 is a bad movie. Plain and simple. Cars 3 is not Cars 2. It’s worse. The latter isn’t necessarily disappointing because it was clear Disney wanted it made for the merchandising. It’s just a bad movie. A cash-in. That isn’t the case here. They didn’t have to make Cars 3. They chose to. That’s what makes it worse.

In the first movie, Lightning McQueen was shallow for the purpose of redemption. In this one, he’s just shallow. He’s no longer speed. He’s at a dead stop.

WOW that was a long one. Sorry about that. It ended up being a little more in-depth than I originally anticipated, but I felt like it was worth talking about. Have any comments for me? Either about the movie, or even about the review itself? Please comment below! Be sure to also follow @nerdboysocial on Twitter for updates on stories, or if you want some less professional musings, follow me, the author, at @jacobisaboy. Thanks again! See you space cowboy.