Movie: Cars 2
Cast: Owen Wilson, John Turturro & Michael Caine
Director: John Lasseter
Rating: **1/2
Who can bring robots, toys and cars to life, if not for Pixar? After a series of successful and enjoyable films, Pixar returns with the story of the fastest car in the world, Lightening McQueen, in Cars 2. In few words if I were to describe Cars 2, I would say it isn’t a perfect follow up to its prequel, but far from flop. Much to everybody’s surprise the film missed out the passion, gravitas and most importantly the heart of Pixar’s earlier films. Pixar in an effort to catapult the image of the film completely ignored the script and tried to spoof a James Bond film, which hardly seemed to have mesmerized anybody.
Cars, originally had a heart in place, which is why people fell in love with the character, Lightening McQueen. Unfortunately, Cars 2 missed a heart; it had the head in the wrong place and lacked all the energy that it was supposed to have.
The hero of “Cars” is made to compete in an international grand prix through Japan, Italy and Britain against arrogant Italian racecar. Thanks to the writer for trying to encompass too many stories in a single film, only to make it boring and recursive. Too many characters make this film little complex because you lose track of them after a while. If McQueen is the hero of the film, why make him struggle to retain his position when everybody loves to see him there, up top. John Lasseter, who brought to us two parts in the Toy Story trilogy, should have given this film a better effort and not made the sidekicks take over the reins.
Yes, too many characters not just inundate the story but take over Lightening McQueen as well, which is so irksome to watch. Let me break down this film into smaller chunks, firstly, Mater, McQueen’s best pal becomes involved in his own espionage when he is mistaken for a US spy. At the same time, in some other part of the country Lightening is all set to race his Italian counterpart Francesco Bernoulli. Mater on his expedition bumps into two more characters, Finn and Holley, who help him to save the cars in the race from an evil force. And there is a subplot, which cleverly brings forth the notion against use of gasoline v/s alternative fuel. This successful experiment is left unanswered without coming to a conclusion. Again, just to prove how flawed and incomplete was the script.
Mater is an adorable character who is sure to be loved by everybody but if he has more screen time than McQueen, I am sure not going to like him. Yes, though he intermittently provided much needed humor to the film, that doesn’t allow him to replace the hero. The two new characters, Finn (Caine), the sophisticated English sports car, an International spy and his sidekick Holley bring to memory images of a James Bond film. Their inclusion only makes way to another subplot and a new character, German villain, Professor Z.
“Cars 2” certainly thrills all those who expected to be thrilled, kids especially but not those who expected little more. Enthralling chase scenes brings in the excitement to the film which certainly everybody enjoyed. 3D was just another feather to this hat just to make it look fancier but not astonishing. I wish it could have been given little tweaking, at least in the script department, which was not woven together thus flowing all over the place. Nevertheless I still recommend you to watch this film- yes, watch it for the friendship between McQueen and Mater, who are so different from each other but still stick together. Would you ask for a better take away?
