Cars

Year: 2006 (Cars), 2011 (Cars 2), 2017 (Cars 3)
Running time: 117 minutes (Cars), 106 minutes (Cars 2), 102 minutes (Cars 3)
Certificate: PG (Cars), U (Cars 2, Cars 3)
Language: English
Screenplay: Dan Fogelman, John Lasseter, Joe Ranft, Kiel Murray, Phil Lorin, Jorgen Klubien (Cars), Ben Queen (Cars 2), Kiel Murray, Bob Peterson, Mike Rich (Cars 3)
Directors: John Lasseter, Joe Ranft (Cars), John Lasseter, Bradford Lewis (Cars 2), Brian Fee (Cars 3)
Starring (voices): Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt, Larry the Cable Guy, Cheech Marin, Tony Shalhoub, Guido Quaroni, Jenifer Lewis, Paul Dooley, Michael Wallis, George Carlin, Katherine Helmond, John Ratzenberger, Michael Keaton, Richard Petty, Jeremy Piven, Bob Costas, Darrell Waltrip, Tom Magliozzi, Ray Magliozzi, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Eddie Izzard, John Tuturro, Cristela Alonzo, Chris Cooper, Nathan Fillion, Armie Hammer

McQueen finds the mentor he never knew he needed.

The Cars franchise has always been lesser Pixar. I mean, it's still imaginative brilliance, but it's never reached the highs of most of the studio's other output. It's always been a little strange to me, then, that the first movie spawned two sequels. It was a bit of a passion project for Pixar head honcho John Lasseter, and so I suppose that could be a reason. I'm determined to not let Lasseter being tarred by the 'me too' brush ruin my enjoyment of it too much, because, as I mentioned in the Rain Man review, a film is made by more than one person, and there is a hell of a lot of great people at Pixar, and many of them worked on the Cars franchise.

Set in a human-less world populated instead with sentient cars, it is certainly an unusual concept. Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) is a rookie race car looking to win the Piston Cup. His two rivals are honourable old champion with the big sponsorship deal McQueen is hoping to win The King (Richard Petty) and a car bitter from a lifetime spent in second place in The King's shadow and willing to play dirty to win, Chick Hicks (Michael Keaton). McQueen is clearly talented, but when we first meet him he is obnoxious with it. Betting he can win the final race and bag the Piston Cup without changing his tyres, a blowout on the final lap sees him just scraping a three-way tie with The King and Chick. The stage is set for a deciding race between the three of them.

Chick Hicks: A dangerous opponent.

Having not yet learned his lesson, McQueen pushes those around him away and Mack, the truck that hauls him around everywhere (voiced by Pixar lucky charm John Ratzenberger) to the point of exhaustion. A mishap in the middle of the night leaves McQueen stranded in the middle of nowhere and in his panic he crashes into a sleepy backwater known as Radiator Springs, wrecking the road as he does so.

And this is where Cars finds its heart. Radiator Springs is populated with a cracking set of characters, where McQueen immediately gets on the wrong side of the cantankerous old Doc Hudson (Paul Newman), who sets him the task of resurfacing the road he damaged in lieu of jailtime. Out of the cast of oddballs, there are two that stand out most significantly in addition to Doc; Sally Carrera (Bonnie Hunt), a Porsche running the local motel and Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), a rusty tow truck who takes a shine to McQueen early on and before long becomes his best friend.

Mater gets to know McQueen's new rival.

During his time in Radiator Springs, McQueen finds an opportunity to appreciate the slower things in life, and as he changes his outlook he wins the townspeoplecars over and begins to feel at home. This film and its makers have an obvious love for cars and the times when driving across a country was done for the ride, not just to get to somewhere else as quickly as possible, and it's made with such affection, that you can’t help wishing for those times too, although, like McQueen, I've never actually witnessed such a time.

The heart of the story may be in Radiator Springs, but the standout set pieces are the races themselves; incredible looking and thrilling - everything Days of Thunder was supposed to be. Even a lesser Pixar film set in a world populated with talking cars with giant eyes, they still somehow manage to create a final act that brings a tear to my eye, as McQueen learns and demonstrates the value of friendship, empathy and just being kind.

Finn McMissile demonstrates how he got his name.

The sequel is bonkers, and straight out of leftfield, even for Pixar. For Cars 2 is a spy movie. With cars. The focus shifts to Mater as he is accidentally recruited as a spy by suave agents Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) and Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer). McQueen is competing in a new series of high-profile races to publicise a more sustainable fuel pioneered by Sir Miles Axlerod (Eddie Izzard).

Mater assists in uncovering a conspiracy to make the new super fuel appear unsafe by making it appear like it causes engines to blow dangerously mid-race. A conspiracy run by what Mater refers to as 'Lemons' - cars that are unreliable, constantly breaking down and having to source spare parts.

Some quality comedy is mined from the rivalry between McQueen and Italian Formula One car Francesco Bernoulli (John Turturro), and the film looks glorious, but it's just such a strange diversion from the tone set by the first film, that it never quite convinces. Perhaps 'convinces' is the wrong word to use when talking about films about sentient spy cars, but I'm sure you know what I mean. It lacks something that the first film had.

McQueen struggles to catch new hot-shot Jackson Storm.

Something that Cars 3 happily finds again. No longer the fresh-faced rookie, Cars 3 finds McQueen struggling to keep up with the new and improved racers. Pushing himself against new rival Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer), McQueen suffers a horrendous crash and isolates himself in Radiator Springs throughout his long recovery. McQueen's old sponsors Rust-Eze have been sold to Sterling (Nathan Fillion), and McQueen sets himself up in Sterling's state-of the-art training centre to get back into shape.

Working with racing trainer Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo), McQueen refuses to accept what seems obvious to everyone; he'll never be as fast as Jackson Storm. This is where Cars 3 begins to evoke the original in a really rather poetic and beautiful way, as McQueen's focus shifts from trying to get faster to teaching Cruz to drive on sand, and discovering more about his late mentor, Doc Hudson. Doc's old mentor Smokey (Chris Cooper) explains to McQueen how much their friendship meant to him.

Working with Smokey, Cruz and McQueen start to build technique to try to overcome McQueen's speed disadvantage, and following an earlier conversation where Cruz revealed she had always wanted to be a racer but could never find the courage, it starts to become clear that Cruz can beat McQueen when she finds her confidence. The finale of Cars 3 also borrows from the first film, as McQueen moves out of the picture, leaving Cruz to take centre stage and beat Storm to the finish line.

McQueen and Cruz, bonding while training.

The three films are chockfull of gorgeous imagery, lovely character work and thrilling set pieces, but, especially with the middle part that lacks some of the heart you can usually take for granted in a Pixar movie, they are decidedly second-tier Pixar.

Score:
Cars: 7/10
Cars 2: 6/10
Cars 3: 7/10

While the general opinion out there tends to mirror mine (see the IMDb scores), there are some out there that have a different opinion. This review of Cars by James at ReelViews skews close to my opinion, but Todd at The Hollywood Reporter overrates Cars 2 somewhat, and David at Rolling Stone prefers Cars 3 to both its predecessors by some margin.